BY  ARTHUR  TRAIN 

THE   EARTHQUAKE 

THE  WORLD   AND  THOMAS  KELLY 

THE   GOLDFISH 

THE  PRISONER  AT  THE   BAR 

COURTS,    CRIMINALS  AND   THE   CAMORRA 

TRUE  STORIES   OP  CRIME 

MCALLISTER  AND  HIS  DOUBLE 

THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  ARTEMAS  QUIBBLE 

C.  Q.,  OR  IN  THE  WIRELESS  HOUSE 

THE  BUTLER'S  STORY 

THE  MAN  WHO  ROCKED  THE  EARTH 

MORTMAIN 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 


BY 

ARTHUR  TRAIN 


"The  End  of  worldly  life  awaits  us  all: 
Let  him  who  may,  gain  honor  ere  death." 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK      ::      ::      ::     1918 


COPTHIGHT,  1918,  BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  March,  1918 
COPYRIGHT,  1917, 1918,  BY  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  CO. 


TO 
ARTHUR  WOODS 

A   PATRIOTIC  CITIZEN  WHO  AS 
COMMISSIONER  OF  POLICE  OF  NEW  YORK  CITY 

1914-1917 
REALIZED  THE  HIGHEST  IDEALS  OF 

PUBLIC  SERVICE 

THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATED 


r ; 

•  I  , 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  »AGB 

I.    MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 3 

II.    MY  HOUSEHOLD 46 

III.  MY  FRIENDS 81 

IV.  MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 121 

V.    MY  DAUGHTER 162 

VI.    MY  SOLDIER  SON 175 

VII.    WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 214 

VIII.    "OF   SHOES — OF    SHIPS — OF    SEALING- 
WAX—"    236 

IX.    WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  Us  276 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 


"And,  behold,  the  Lord  passed  by,  and  a  great  and  strong 
wind  rent  the  mountains,  and  broke  in  pieces  the  rocks  before 
the  Lord;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  wind:  and  after  the 
wind  an  earthquake;  but  the  Lord  was  not  hi  the  earthquake: 
and  after  the  earthquake  a  fire;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the 
fire:  and  after  the  fire  a  still  small  voice." 

"And  the  Lord  said  unto  him:  '.  .  .  And  it  shall  come 
to  pass,  that  him  that  escapeth  the  sword  of  Hazael  shall  Jehu 
slay:  and  him  that  escapeth  from  the  sword  of  Jehu  shall 
Elisha  slay.  Yet  I  have  left  me  seven  thousand  in  Israel,  all 
the  knees  which  have  not  bowed  unto  Baal,  and  every  mouth 
which  hath  not  kissed  him.'  "—I  Kings  xix,  11-19. 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

i 

MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

Rip  Van  Winkle  was  no  less  in  touch  with  affairs  hi 
the  valley  of  the  Hudson  on  his  return  home  after  his 
twenty  years'  sleep  among  the  Catskills  than  my 
wife,  my  daughter,  and  myself  were  with  those  of 
these  United  States  when  we  descended  from  our 
sleeper  to  the  upper  platform  of  the  Grand  Central 
Station  upon  OUT  return  to  New  York  City  in  the 
autumn  of  1917.  In  many  respects,  allowing  for 
the  greater  velocity  of  life  in  the  twentieth  century, 
our  cases  were  not  dissimilar.  For  ten  months,  under 
a  doctor's  orders,  we  had  wandered  in  the  Orient,  and 
returned  home  to  find  ourselves  in  what  was  presently 
to  prove  a  new  world. 

I  had  been  a  fairly  prosperous  bond  merchant,  the 
junior  partner  in  a  well-connected  and  reputable  Wall 
Street  house;  not  one  of  the  Grecian-temple  variety, 
with  pillars  of  Carrara  and  floors  of  onyx  and  jasper, 
but  a  modest  establishment  up  one  flight,  where  we 
did  a  legitimate  business  in  strictly  investment  secur- 

3 


' :  THE  EARTHQUAKE 

ities,  dividing  among  the  three  of  us  a  yearly  net 
profit  of  approximately  forty  thousand  dollars.  Morris, 
Lord  &  Stanton  is  our  firm  name,  and  I  was  and  still 
am  the  Stanton — John  Stanton,  A.B.,  Harvard  '86. 

If  you  care,  now  or  later,  to  take  the  trouble  to  look 
me  up  in  "Who's  Who"  you  will  learn  that  the  author 
of  these  memoirs  was  born  in  Worcester,  Massa- 
chusetts, December  23,  1865;  the  son  of  John  Adams 
Stanton,  a  banker  of  that  place,  and  Mary  Stuart 
Thayer,  his  wife;  that  he  attended  the  schools  of  his 
native  city  and  afterward  St.  Paul's,  at  Concord,  New 
Hampshire;  graduated  in  due  course  from  Harvard  as 
above;  went  into  business  in  New  York  City;  married 
Helen  Morris — the  sister  of  his  present  partner — on 
April  30,  1887;  is  the  father  of  two  children  and  the 
author  of  "Bonds  Versus  Stocks — a  Handbook  for 
Investors,"  a  "History  of  American  Stock  Exchanges," 
and  "American  Railroad  Securities."  In  my  capacity 
as  my  own  biographer  I  also  included  in  the  personal 
sketch  with  which  I  furnished  the  editors  of  that 
interesting  publication  the  valuable  information  that 
I  was  a  Republican,  an  Episcopalian,  and  had  "never 
as  yet  held  public  office." 

That  was  the  history  of  the  John  Stanton  who  shook 
the  dust  of  Wall  Street  from  his  feet  toward  the  end 
of  the  year  1916  to  seek  health  in  regions  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  telephone  and  the  daily  newspaper. 
Sometimes  I  am  inclined  to  feel  that  the  life  of  that 

4 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

particular  John  Stanton  ended  there  and  then.  At  any 
rate,  if  he  still  lives  he  is,  in  fact,  another  and  different 
man.  The  first  followed  a  soft,  ease-loving,  thought- 
less sort  of  life,  content  to  go  with  the  crowd,  spending 
his  money  as  freely  as  he  made  it,  running  to  seed 
spiritually  and  intellectually,  his  only  ambition  being 
to  build  up  so  extensive  a  business  that  he  could  re- 
tire at  the  earliest  possible  moment  and  amuse  him- 
self— presumably  as  much  as  possible  at  the  watering- 
places  of  continental  Europe. 

To-day —  Well,  it  is  the  other  and  I  trust  the 
better  John  Stanton  who  writes  these  pages.  Indeed, 
I  not  only  view  my  ten  months  in  the  Pacific  as  a  long 
sleep,  but  I  account  the  whole  fifty-two  previous  years 
of  my  life  as  no  less  spent  in  dreaming — the  dreaming 
of  the  materialistic,  essentially  selfish,  if  good-natured, 
American  business  man,  the  dreamer  of  full-fed  dreams. 
It  was  only  when  I  stepped  out  of  that  transconti- 
nental train  that  I  began  to  wake  up.  It  was  only 
then  that  I  felt  the  first  faint  anticipatory  quiver  of 
the  shock  I  was  soon  to  get — the  shock  of  the  earth- 
quake that  in  the  next  thirty  days  was  to  set  my  brain 
to  reeling,  to  turn  my  domestic  existence  topsyturvy, 
and  to  leave  me  clutching  at  my  heart  with  weak  and 
trembling  hands. 

The  year  1915  had  seen  munition  and  industrial 
stocks  generally  rocketing  starward;  bonds  had  been 
strong  and  trade  brisk.  We  at  the  office  gave  the 

5 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

war,  at  most,  two  years  to  run  and  capitalized  our 
profits  with  the  rest  of  the  Street. 

The  demand  for  ships  of  wood  and  iron,  for  copper, 
steel,  dyes,  and  machinery  was  beyond  anything 
hitherto  known  or  imagined.  To  own  a  steamboat  or 
a  foundry  was  to  be  a  millionaire.  One  of  our  clients 
had  a  steel-rolling  mill  out  in  Ohio  and  another  in  New 
Jersey.  He  wanted  to  get  hold  of  half  a  dozen  more 
and  have  a  merger.  Nothing  loath,  I  undertook  the 
job.  For  five  months  I  slaved  day  and  night,  sleeping 
most  of  the  tune  on  trains,  paying  no  attention  to 
what  I  ate,  my  mind  concentrated  upon  a  single  ob- 
ject— to  float  the  Phoenicia  Steel  Company.  The  pa- 
pers were  just  ready  to  be  signed  when  the  "peace 
leak"  nearly  wrecked  the  whole  enterprise.  For  two 
days  it  looked  as  though  my  merger  would  never 
merge,  as  though  my  eggs  would  never  scramble;  and 
then,  the  excitement  having  subsided,  the  respective 
treasurers  affixed  then:  signatures  to  the  necessary 
documents,  shook  hands  with  one  another,  and  it  was 
done. 

That  afternoon  I  sat  limp  in  a  leather  armchair  in 
Frank  Brewer's  office  and  heard  my  doom  from  the 
stern  lips  of  New  York's  leading  nerve  specialist. 

"Stanton,"  he  exclaimed  impatiently,  "you've  just 
missed  a  complete  breakdown!  Twenty-four  hours 
more  and  I'd  have  had  to  order  you  to  a  sanatorium. 
You've  got  to  quit  right  here  and  now,  give  up  your 

6 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

business  entirely  and  go  away  for  a  year.  No;  don't 
call  up  your  office !  You'll  do  exactly  what  I  tell  you 
or  I  won't  be  responsible  for  consequences.  I'll  see 
both  your  partners — they're  old  friends  of  mine. 
Now  go  up  to  the  club  and  take  a  Turkish  bath  and  a 
rub.  Then  drink  a  pint  of  champagne  and  go  to 
sleep.  I  don't  want  you  to  go  home.  I'll  call  to  see 
you  during  the  evening." 

I  did  as  I  was  told,  including  the  champagne. 
Strange  to  say,  I  slept.  At  nine  o'clock  I  woke  to 
find  Dr.  Brewer  and  my  two  partners  at  my  side. 

"It's  all  fixed!"  said  Morris  gently.  "I've  told 
Helen  she  must  get  ready  to  leave  New  York  on 
Saturday." 

"But—"  I  protested  dizzily.    "There's  Margery." 

"Ought  to  be  glad  to  get  her  out  of  New  York!" 
snapped  Brewer.  "No  eighteen-year-old  girl  has  any 
business  here ! " 

"And  she  says  she's  crazy  to  go  to  Japan!"  added 
Lord  with  a  grin. 

"Japan!" 

"And,  by  the  way,"  continued  my  brother-in-law, 
"Tom  Blanchard  happened  to  be  in  the  office  when 
Brewer  telephoned  this  afternoon,  and  he  said  he 
wasn't  going  back  to  his  place  in  Hawaii  again  this 
year,  and  that  he'd  be  glad  to  have  you  go  there  and 
stay — all  of  you — as  long  as  you  want.  It's  a  sugar- 
plantation,  you  know — smiling,  brown-skinned  na- 

7 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

lives,  hammocks,  hula-hula  girls,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing!" 

"Yes,"  I  nodded.  "  'On  the  Beach  at  Waikiki'— I 
know!  You  fellows  seem  to  have  mapped  out  my 
whole  future  life  for  me.  Well,  if  you've  squared  it 
with  Helen  and  got  her  to  agree  to  separate  her  sub- 
debutante  daughter  from  the  follies  of  1916,  I'll  go 
you — to  Japan  or  Java  or  Jerusalem,  for  as  long  as 
you  say,  and  a  day  longer !" 

And  so  I  went. 

My  wife,  Helen,  my  daughter,  Margery,  and  I 
sailed  on  the  Canadian  Pacific  Steamship  Empressjtf 
China  on  December  19,  1916,  for  the  Far  East,  where 
OUT  travels,  our  impressions,  and  our  adventures  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  purposes  of  this  nar- 
rative. 

On  the  steamer  the  Canadians  and  English  aboard 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  us.  Even  in  the  usu- 
ally friendly  atmosphere  of  the  smoking-room  I  was 
left  to  myself,  except  for  a  couple  of  compatriots  who 
agreed  with  me  that  American  stock  with  the  Allies 
had  gone  down  badly.  Indeed,  certain  passengers, 
especially  the  Canadians,  took  pains  to  air  their  un- 
complimentary views  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  in  tones  obviously  intended  to  be  over- 
heard. 

Altogether,  I  was  glad  when  we  got  to  Yokohama, 
8 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

and  so  far  as  Japan  was  concerned,  I  observed  per- 
sonally none  of  the  popular  hostility  to  things  Ameri- 
can I  had  been  led  to  believe  existed  there  from  my 
reading  of  newspapers  and  magazines  in  the  United 
States. 

After  two  delightful  weeks  we  took  ship  from 
Nagasaki  for  Manila,  where  I  chartered  a  government 
revenue  steamer  and  cruised  for  six  weeks  more  in 
the  archipelago,  visiting  some  islands  where  the  na- 
tives had  never  before  seen  an  American  or  even  a 
white  man,  though  owing  allegiance  to  the  United 
States.  It  was  the  trip  of  my  life,  and,  in  addition  to 
the  small  arsenal  of  head-axes  and  war-knives  lying  at 
the  other  end  of  the  table  upon  which  I  am  writing,  I 
carried  away  with  me  the  emblem  of  the  Sacred  Turtle 
tattooed  upon  my  tummy — which  proves,  to  those 
who  know,  that  I  am  blood  brother  of  Jose  Aguinaldo 
Pejaros  and  a  subchieftain  of  a  tribe  with  an  unpro- 
nounceable name,  whose  members  for  ugliness  leave 
nothing  to  be  desired. 

During  this  period  we  received  no  mail  and  saw  no 
newspapers,  these  last,  before  we  left,  having  been 
pronounced  anathema  by  Brewer. 

"Whatever  you  do,  don't  look  at  a  paper  for  three 
months!"  he  had  ordered;  and  I  had  humbly  prom- 
ised to  obey.  Indeed,  it  was  no  burden  to  carry  out 
his  injunction.  I  could  not  have  done  otherwise — 
there  were  no  papers  to  read.  In  Manila,  of  course,  we 

9 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

had  been  in  touch  for  about  forty-eight  hours  with 
our  native  land,  long  enough  to  bring  our  war  news 
roughly  up  to  date  and  to  glance  over  President 
Wilson's  Message  of  January  22d.  As  for  our  going 
into  the  war,  the  idea  seemed  to  me  at  that  time  ut- 
terly preposterous.  I  hadn't  believed  that  anything 
could  drive  us  in,  or  that,  even  if  we  went  in,  anything 
would  come  of  it.  In  Japan,  Manila,  and  Honolulu 
it  seemed  to  .be  assumed  that  there  was  no  real  in- 
tention on  the  part  of  our  government  to  do  more 
than  make  enough  of  a  demonstration  to  save  the  na- 
tional face. 

I  confess  that,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  there 
wasn't  any  national  face  left.  To  my  mind,  the  Presi- 
dent had  been  stalling  from  the  outset.  The  "Peace 
Without  Victory"  speech,  which  we  got,  as  I  have 
said,  at  Manila,  finished  it  for  me.  It  was  all  very 
noble,  very  magnanimous,  very  benign,  and  very  high- 
falutin,  I  thought.  We  were  just  fixing  things  up  so  as 
to  be  on  the  right  side  of  everybody  after  the  war  was 
over.  Mr.  Wilson  had  said:  "Victory  would  mean 
peace  forced  upon  the  loser,  a  victor's  terms  imposed 
upon  the  vanquished.  It  would  be  accepted  in  humil- 
iation, under  duress,  at  an  intolerable  sacrifice,  and 
would  leave  a  sting,  a  resentment,  a  bitter  memory, 
upon  which  terms  of  peace  would  rest — not  perma- 
nently, but  only  as  upon  quicksand." 

Fine,  I  said,  if  we  were  dealing  with  a  government 
10 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

that  didn't  countenance,  if  not  order,  the  cutting  off 
of  women's  breasts,  the  poisoning  of  wells,  the  drown- 
ing of  babes  in  arms  with  their  mothers,  the  violation 
of  young  and  innocent  girls !  But  you  might  as  well 
consider  the  feelings  of  a  ruffian  who  had  debauched 
your  daughter  and  refrain  from  locking  him  up  be- 
cause his  confinement  in  jail  "would  be  accepted 
in  humiliation,  under  duress,  at  an  intolerable  sacrifice, 
and  would  leave  a  sting,  a  resentment,  a  bitter  mem- 
ory" after  he  finally  got  out.  That  was  how  I  felt 
about  it. 

The  President's  speech  of  February  3,  1917,  de- 
livered upon  the  severance  of  relations  with  Germany 
— which  we  picked  up  in  Mindanao — had  cheered  me 
somewhat.  That,  I  admitted,  looked  more  like  busi- 
ness. But  I  felt  by  no  means  sure  that  it  was  not  put 
forth  with  a  belief  almost  approaching  certainty  that 
the  German  Government  would  back  down;  and  if  it 
backed  down  I  knew  we  should  never  go  to  war.  The 
sentence  "We  are  the  sincere  friends  of  the  German 
people  and  earnestly  desire  to  remain  at  peace  with 
the  government  which  speaks  for  them"  bore  an  olive- 
branch  that  I  expected  would  herald  the  return  of 
Bernstorff. 

Of  course  I  know  better  to-day;  for  we  all  are  aware 
now  of  what  Mr.  Wilson  knew  then — what  Germany 
had  been  doing  here  in  the  way  of  distributing  blood- 
money  and  hiring  criminals,  and  of  what  the  Kaiser 

11 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

and  his  ministers  had  planned  and  even  threatened 
against  the  United  States. 

Even  if  finally  we  actually  declared  war,  I  did  not 
believe  that  that  act  would  have  any  concrete  result. 
We  were  entirely  unprepared,  and  the  war  would  be 
over  long  before  we  could  send  a  properly  trained  and 
adequately  armed  body  of  troops  to  Europe.  I  fig- 
ured the  thing  out  in  about  the  same  way  the  German 
General  Staff  had  figured  it  out.  Nobody  wanted  war 
except  a  few  jingoes  hi  the  East;  free  Americans  would 
never  stand  for  conscription,  and  our  entry  would  have 
no  effect  except  to  divert  back  into  the  United  States 
the  tide  of  munitions  flowing  steadily  to  England  and 
France.  To  that  extent  Germany  would  actually 
profit  by  our  action. 

We  were  visiting  a  native  village,  I  remember,  In 
one  of  the  coral  islands  the  first  week  in  April  when 
the  captain  of  our  revenue  cutter  picked  up  the  news 
by  wireless  from  Manila  that  the  President  had  pro- 
claimed a  state  of  war  between  the  United  States  and 
the  Imperial  German  Government.  Naturally,  the 
news  occasioned  a  good  deal  of  excitement  on  the 
steamer  and  the  captain  dressed  ship  and  fired  a 
salute,  which  sent  the  natives  scurrying  to  the  woods. 
Helen's  first  thought,  of  course,  was  of  our  son,  a 
junior  at  Harvard.  Looking  at  me  a  little  anxiously, 
she  said: 

"Jack's  not  old  enough  to  go,  is  he?" 
12 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

"Oh,  no!"  I  answered  resolutely.  "Jack's  only  a 
boy  at  college.  Besides,  the  war  will  be  over  long  be- 
fore we  can  send  any  troops  across.  They'd  send  the 
regular  army  first,  anyhow." 

I  told  her  that  quite  sincerely.  It  never  dawned 
upon  me  to  think  otherwise.  Jack  was  a  kid.  He 
didn't  have  sense  enough  to  change  his  shoes  after  he 
had  been  out  in  the  rain.  Only  a  year  or  so  ago  I  had 
had  to  stand  over  him  with  a  club  to  make  him  brush 
his  teeth,  and  he  had  hated  a  bath  just  as  much  as 
the  devil  is  supposed  to  hate  consecrated  water. 

"Oh,  no!"  I  reassured  her.  "You  don't  need  to 
worry  a  single  minute  about  Jack.  He  might  go  to 
the  next  war,  but  he'll  get  no  chance  at  this." 

And  so  we  steamed  on  among  the  islands,  under 
cloudless  skies,  reading  novels  and  playing  bridge, 
until,  six  weeks  later,  we  again  reached  Manila  and 
regretfully  bade  farewell  to  our  captain. 

From  Manila  we  took  a  steamer  for  Honolulu,  and 
a  week  later  arrived  by  coasting  vessel  at  Ilao,  where 
Tom  Blanchard's  sugar-factory  is  situated,  and  began 
our  lotos-eating  life  on  the  plantation.  There  for 
several  months  we  led  the  existence  commonly  re- 
ferred to  as  idyllic,  keeping  no  hours,  sleeping  fourteen 
out  of  the  twenty-four  when  we  chose,  swimming  in 
crystalline  water  inside  the  reefs,  fishing  for  rainbow- 
hued  pauu  and  hilu  outside  the  islands,  and  waited 
upon  hand  and  foot  by  impassive  Chinese  servants, 

13 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

who  anticipated  every  thought  we  either  had  or  should 
have  had. 

The  bungalow  was  half  a  mile  from  the  sugar-fac- 
tory, on  the  other  side  of  a  point,  and  had  its  own  dock. 
There  was  no  telegraph;  we  bad  no  neighbors;  and 
there  was  no  one  to  speak  to  except  a  taciturn  super- 
intendent, who  looked  like  an  ex-convict  and  who  lived 
with  a  half-caste  wife  named  Mo-a.  Once  a  week  a 
small  steamer  dropped  a  bag  of  mail  at  our  landing, 
including  a  bundle  of  morning,  evening,  and  Sunday 
New  York  papers  about  as  big  as  a  hogshead. 

At  first  we  used  to  rush  down  to  the  jetty  and  tear 
off  the  wrappers  before  the  Chink  could  bring  them  up 
to  the  veranda — just  couldn't  wait!  We  wanted  to 
know  exactly  what  the  government  was  doing;  how 
many  hundred  yards  the  French  and  English  had 
gained  from  the  boches  since  the  week  before;  how 
much  nearer  Cadorna  was  to  Triest;  and  whether  the 
Czar  had  been  put  at  peeling  potatoes  or  wheeling  a 
barrow.  Gradually,  however,  we  lost  interest.  It 
took  all  the  joy  out  of  life  to  spend  whole  days  waist- 
high  in  newspapers — all  alike  and  full  of  vain  repeti- 
tions— trying  to  arrange  the  stuff  in  its  proper  se- 
quence. When  you  get  about  forty  newspapers  at 
once  there  is  a  striking  monotony,  even  about  war 
news. 

Finally  we  reached  the  point  when  we  couldn't 
look  at  them — except  for  the  head-lines.  To  see  my 

14 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

namesake,  John — Head  or  Number  One  Boy — come 
staggering  up  the  beach  with  that  huge  load  of  brown- 
wrapped  rolls  of  printed  matter  on  his  back  filled  us 
with  gloom.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  all  weeks  old 
when  it  got  to  us;  and  then  there  was  so  much  of  it! 
Stale  tons  of  it!  Usually  after  lying  unopened  for 
days,  those  papers  found  their  way  down  to  Mo-a, 
who  liked  to  cut  out  the  pictures  in  the  supplements 
and  paste  them  on  the  wall  of  her  house  with  fish- 
glue  that  she  boiled  herself. 

I  would  occasionally  find  her  gazing  rapturously  at 
some  rotogravure  print*  of  George  M.  Cohan,  William 
Jennings  Bryan,  or  Colonel  House,  and  murmuring 
"Beau'fu'  man!"  In  ladies  she  took  no  interest,  and 
she  would  look  contemptuously  at  the  reproductions 
of  our  most  brilliant  Broadway  stars — at  Jane  Cowl, 
Billie  Burke,  or  our  own  Maxine,  and  shake  her  head 
and  mutter  "No-a-good!" 

You  see,  the  atmosphere  was  somehow  antipathetic 
to  intellectual  exertion.  Our  previous  New  York 
ideas  seemed — how  shall  I  say  ? — "  irrelevant,  incom- 
petent, and  immaterial."  We  lived  like  princes  and 
it  cost  us  only  a  few  cents  a  day;  we  couldn't  have 
bought  anything  even  if  we  had  needed  it — which  we 
didn't;  there  was  nothing  in  the  world  of  Ilao  to 
spend  a  single  cent  on,  and  I  don't  believe  that  liter- 
ally there  was  more  than  six  dollars  Mex.  in  the  place. 

There  was  nothing  to  worry  us,  no  duties  to  per- 
15 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

form,  "nowhere  to  go  but  out"  —  and  "out"  was  as 
near  heaven  as  anything  I  have  ever  known.  We 
talked  of  New  York  as  if  it  might  have  been  Calcutta. 
We  read  of  the  war,  but  it  did  not  seem  real.  We 
knew  that  men  were  suffering  and  dying,  but  it  was 
like  reading  about  it  years  afterward.  It  was  our  own 
daily  life  there  at  Ilao  that  was  real  to  us  —  the  other 
thing  was  literary,  like  our  books;  so  we  sat  round 
and  read  frayed  copies  out  of  Blanchard's  library  — 
Marion  Crawford,  Whyte-Melville,  William  Dean 
HowellsC  and  others  of  a  bygone  literary  age.  I  men- 
tion this  because  now  it  seems  so  extraordinary  that, 
with  our  country  at  war,  we  should  have  been  dream- 
ing over  "Saracinesca,"  or  "Mr.  Isaacs,"  or  "The 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,"  while  the  bodies  of  thousands 
of  our  fellow  human  beings  lay  rotting  out  in  No 
Man's  Land. 

A  Wall  Street  bond  broker  has  no  time  for  dreaming 
and  he  has  no  visions  at  all;  but  there  at  Ilao  we 
dreamed  that  we  were  young  again,  and  we  had  time 
to  wonder  why  we  no  longer  had  any  visions.  And 
sometimes,  though  I  missed,  in  a  way,  the  activity  of 
New  York,  the  complex  interests  of  work  and  amuse- 
ment, our  hundreds  of  friends  and  the  excitement  of 
the  game,  I  told  myself  that  now,  for  the  first  time, 
in  this  distant  place,  with  none  of  my  own  kind  about 
except  my  wife  and  daughter,  I  was  in  a  position  to 
estimate  the  real  value  of  the  sort  of  life  I  had  worked 
so  hard  to  live.  Was  it,  I  asked  myself,  worth  the 


T 


MYSELF-JOHN  STANTON 

candle?  After  all,  did  I  get  anything  out  of  it — at  a 
thousand  times  the  cost — better  than  I  got  out  of  life 
atllao? 

A  bombshell  fell  among  us  one  day,  however,  which 
shattered  our  dreaming.  It  had  been  arranged  that 
after  his  spring  examinations  Jack  should  join  us;  and, 
now  that  July  had  come,  we  were  daily  expecting  a 
letter  containing  the  news  that  he  had  started  West 
and  giving  us  the  approximate  date  of  his  arrival.  I 
had  been  out  with  one  of  the  Chinamen  fishing  for 
hilu  when  I  saw  the  steamer  rounding  the  headland. 
As  she  was  several  hours  ahead  of  time  and  there  was 
no  one  at  the  landing,  we  rowed  over  to  meet  her. 
The  captain,  a  red-faced  sea-dog,  with  watery  eyes, 
was  standing  on  the  bridge. 

"  Hello ! "  I  shouted.    "  What's  the  news  ?  " 

He  mopped  his  forehead  with  a  yellow  madras 
handkerchief  and  regarded  me  thoughtfully.  I  was  a 
perennial  object  of  curiosity  to  him. 

"They've  put  through  conscription,"  he  answered 
hoarsely,  "and  sold  a  couple  of  billion  dollars'  bond 
issue.  Looks  like  Uncle  Sam  meant  business — after 
all,"  he  added. 

Sitting  in  my  pongee  suit  in  that  flimsy  fishing-boat, 
rising  and  falling  with  my  Chinaman  in  the  wash  of 
that  stinking  coasting  steamer,  the  significance  of  what 
he  said  did  not  get  across  to  me.  Ilao  would  be  just 
the  same,  no  matter  how  many  conscripts  might  be 
drafted  or  how  many  billions  were  raised  through 

17 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

bond  issues  or  otherwise.  That  same  wilting  sun 
would  blaze  down  on  that  same  sagging  old  jetty, 
covered  with  its  loose  ends  of  hemp  and  its  empty 
hogsheads;  the  same  stoical  Chinaman  would  plod 
down  to  meet  the  weekly  steamer;  and  from  the  set- 
tlement behind  the  point  the  same  softly  crooned 
songs  would  rise  under  the  moonlight  to  the  sad  wail 
of  the  ukulele. 

"  Sure ! "  I  retorted.    "  What'd  you  expect  ?  " 

The  captain  did  not  answer  my  question.  He  prob- 
ably had  had  no  expectations  in  the  matter. 

"Here's  a  letter  for  you!"  he  called  down,  taking 
it  from  inside  his  cap.  He  passed  it  to  a  deck-hand, 
who  relayed  it  over  the  side  to  me.  "  Look  out  there ! " 
he  warned  us,  as  he  gave  the  jingle,  and  the  steamer, 
which  had  not  made  fast,  began  to  back  out. 

The  Chink  pulled  a  few  strokes  away,  while  I  lit  a 
cigarette  and  watched  the  old  tub  back  nearly  into 
the  coral  reef,  swing  her  nose  round,  and  head  for  the 
open  sea.  Then  the  jingle  rang  again,  her  propeller 
thrashed  the  water  like  a  hippo  taking  a  mud-bath, 
and  she  spurted  ahead  into  the  rollers. 

"An'  a  hundred  million  for  the  Red  Cross!"  bel- 
lowed the  captain  across  the  intervening  waves.  "I 
forgot  that!" 

"Red  Cross!"— that  was  pretty  fine,  I  thought. 
Then  I  looked  at  the  handwriting  on  the  envelope, 
saw  that  it  was  from  Jack,  and  tore  it  open. 

18 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

"Dear  Dad,"  it  ran,  in  a  childish  scrawl.  "Most 
of  the  fellows  are  going  to  Plattsburg,  so  I  thought 
you  wouldn't  mind  if  I  went  along,  too.  You  will  be 
coming  home  soon,  anyhow.  If  I  should  be  lucky 
enough  to  grab  off  a  commission,  there  wouldn't  be 
any  chance  of  my  going  abroad  for  a  long  time  yet. 
Lots  of  love  to  mother  and  Margery.  The  weather  is 
ripping !— Aff'ly,  JACK." 

The  boy's  letter  gave  me  a  mixed  feeling  of  pride 
and  disappointment.  I  was  crazy  to  see  him,  of  course; 
but  it  was  quite  natural  and  very  creditable  that  he 
should  want  to  get  some  military  training.  That  he 
would  ever  actually  be  an  officer  in  command  of  men 
was  absurd.  He  hadn't  the  remotest  idea  of  discipline. 

Well,  Plattsburg  was  a  good  thing  for  the  health, 
anyhow,  and  I  didn't  blame  him  for  wanting  to  go 
along  with  the  rest  of  his  friends.  Nevertheless,  the 
letter  did  not  rest  easily  in  my  pocket  as  I  trudged 
across  the  beach  to  the  bungalow  where  Helen  was 
reading  in  the  hammock.  I  tossed  it  into  her  lap, 
without  comment,  and  she  gave  a  little  cry  of  joy. 
When  she  had  read  it,  however,  she  lifted  a  white  face 
to  me  and  said  simply: 

"Oh,  John!    Let's  go  home!" 

Our  trip  back  was  smooth  and  uneventful.  Gradu- 
ally we  gathered  up  the  threads  of  what  had  been 

19 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

going  on  in  our  absence  and  came  to  realize  that  the 
United  States  had  gone  into  the  war  in  earnest;  but 
Europe  seemed  a  long  way  off  and  it  did  not  occur  to 
us  that  our  own  lives  would  be  made  in  any  way 
different  by  what  had  occurred.  My  health  was  now 
completely  re-established  and  we  were  all  tanned  as 
brown  as  native  islanders. 

In  Frisco  we  saw  plenty  of  young  fellows  in  khaki, 
and  occasionally,  on  our  way  across  the  continent, 
passed  a  troop  train  upon  a  siding  jammed  with  ruddy 
lads,  who  waved  to  us  out  of  car-windows  over  white- 
painted  inscriptions  of  "Can  the  Kaiser!"  or  "Berlin 
or  Bust!"  or  "Potsdam  Express!"  But,  in  spite  of 
what  we  read  in  the  papers  and  the  magazines,  all  of 
which  we  bought,  in  spite  of  the  officers  in  uniform 
and  the  printed  admonitions  from  Mr.  Hoover,  placed 
so  conspicuously  in  the  dining-car,  it  did  not  seem 
somehow  in  any  way  to  affect  us.  We  were  at  war — 
yes;  a  lot  of  men  were  going  over  to  fight — if  peace 
wasn't  declared  first;  the  government  was  going  to 
raise  a  stupendous  sum  of  money  and  had  embarked 
upon  a  gigantic  programme  of  preparation;  but — 
other  people,  not  we,  were  doing  it ! 

We  were  just  spectators !  It  was  like  seeing  a  big 
show  at  the  Hippodrome  from  excellently  chosen 
seats,  or  watching  a  procession  on  Fifth  Avenue  from 
a  window.  We  could  go  home  and  to  bed  whenever 
we  felt  like  it.  Our  reaction  was  that,  though  we 

20 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

should  like  to  get  into  the  game  and  help,  it  was  all 
being  handled  by  some  one  else,  and  there  was  really 
nothing  for  us  to  do  except  to  go  on  living  as  usual. 
That  was  the  delusion  from  which  we  were  suffering 
when  we  stepped  off  the  train  at  the  Grand  Central 
Station  that  bright  October  morning. 

Rene,  our  lame  French  chauffeur,  whom  we  had 
left  on  hah*  wages  during  our  absence — "much  too 
good  to  let  go"  had  been  our  theory — was  waiting  for 
us  with  a  fur  lap-robe  over  his  arm  on  the  curb  out- 
side the  station,  and  our  smart  little  Renault  landaulet, 
which  had  just  come  from  the  shop,  looked  almost 
like  new.  Our  other  servants  had  been  sent  away  and 
our  house  on  East  Seventy-second  Street  had  been  left 
in  charge  of  a  caretaker. 

"You  had  better  go  to  the  Chatwold  for  a  day  or 
two,"  I  suggested  to  my  wife;  "then  you  can  take 
plenty  of  time  to  engage  your  servants.  I  think  I'll 
drop  down  to  the  office  to  see  how  things  are  going. 
Probably  I'll  be  up  to  lunch." 

We  were  back  in  New  York,  back  in  our  home  town, 
back  in  our  old  lives — that  is,  we  thought  we  were 
back  to  them. 

"Where's  Morris?"  I  asked  twenty  minutes  later 
as  I  stepped  into  our  private  office  and  shook  my 
partner  Lord  by  the  hand. 

"Morris?"  he  repeated,  lifting  his  eyebrows. 
"Didn't  you  know?  Oh,  you  probably  didn't  get  my 

21 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

letter.  Why,  your  brother-in-law  pulled  up  stakes 
last  week  and  has  gone  down  to  Washington  to  help 
McAdoo." 

"Gone  to  Washington!"  I  repeated  blankly. 
"  What's  he  gone  there  for  ?  How  are  we  going  to  get 
on  without  him  in  the  business?" 

My  partner  laughed  grimly  and  shrugged  his  well- 
tailored  shoulders. 

"There  isn't  any  business!"  he  remarked. 

I  looked  at  him  stupidly. 

"How  do  you  mean — no  business?"  I  repeated  in- 
credulously. 

"Just  exactly  that — no  business  at  all!"  he  an- 
swered. "Bonds  are  dead!  Everybody  is  trying  to 
sell  'em,  and  there  aren't  any  buyers.  We  haven't 
paid  our  expenses  for  the  last  six  months.  There's 
nothing  doing  here.  So  far  as  business  is  concerned, 
you  might  have  stayed  away  forever.  We  don't  need 
Morris;  we  don't  need  any  office  force.  But  we  can't 
send  'em  away;  it  wouldn't  be  decent.  We've  just 
got  to  make  up  our  minds  to  it — that's  all !" 

I  sat  down,  slowly  trying  to  take  it  all  in — to  en- 
visage this  new  Wall  Street. 

"Aren't  there  any  profits?"  I  persisted. 

"Profits— hell!"  he  ejaculated.  "Say,  what's  the 
matter  with  you  ?  Where  do  you  think  you  are,  any- 
way? This  business  is  costing  us  two  thousand  a 
month!" 

22 


MYSELF—JOHN  STANTON 

I  got  up  and  walked  to  the  window. 

"Where  did  the  money  come  from  you've  been 
sending  me  ?  "  I  demanded. 

"Your  share  of  our  commissions  on  the  Phoenicia 
merger,"  he  replied.  "Look  here,  old  top,  it's  time 
you  began  to  wake  up.  I  suppose  we  ought  to  have 
let  you  know  how  things  were,  but  it  seemed  kinder 
to  let  you  enjoy  yourself." 

"To  let  me  dream  on/'  I  retorted.  "  Well,  let's  hear 
the  rest  of  it." 

"I  suppose  you  know  about  the  income  tax?" 

"Not  much." 

"Well,  you're  soaked  three  ways — the  old  1916  tax, 
the  new  1917  war  tax,  and  the  8  per  cent  on  earnings 
over  six  thousand  dollars." 

"That  last  won't  hurt  us  much,  will  it?"  Then  I 
burst  out  laughing.  "Do  you  know,  Lord — oh,  Lord  I 
— that  I've  just  sent  my  wife  and  daughter  up  to  take 
a  suite  at  the  Chatwold?" 

He  chuckled. 

"There's  the  telephone,"  he  said  humorously,  push- 
ing it  toward  me. 

"I  think  I  need  your  help,  old  man,"  I  replied. 
"Just  sit  down  here  with  me — will  you? — and  figure 
out  what's  left." 

Lord  opened  a  drawer  and  pulled  out  a  printed 
sheet  covered  with  a  complicated  table  of  figures.  I 
told  him  the  returns  from  my  private  capital,  and 

23 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

after  a  comparatively  brief  calculation  he  informed 
me  that  my  income  tax  would  amount  to  $3,713.09. 
I  never  knew  how  he  got  the  nine  cents.  Anyhow,  it 
really  didn't  matter  much.  I  took  the  sheet  of  pad 
paper  on  which  he  had  been  writing  and  studied  it 
attentively,  with  mingled  feelings.  Then  I  lifted  my 
pencil  and  poised  it  in  my  hand. 

"What  have  our  yearly  profits  averaged  for  the  last 
five  years — yours  and  mine?"  I  asked. 

"Twelve  thousand  apiece,"  he  answered  at  once. 

"Well,  I've  spent  every  cent  of  it;  so  have  you. 
Add  twelve  thousand  to  three  thousand  and  seven 
hundred" — I  did  it — "and  you  get  fifteen  thousand 
seven  hundred.  That's  what  this  blooming  old  war 
has  done  to  me  already!  It's  cut  my  income  over 
fifteen  thousand  dollars." 

"It's  done  the  same  to  me,"  said  he. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  I  demanded. 

It  didn't  seem  possible.  I  was  almost  convinced 
there  must  be  some  trick  in  the  figures — a  statistical 
joke. 

"Do?    Same  as  you  will — cut  down  expenses." 

"  Fifteen  thousand  dollars  ?    I  can't ! " 

Of  course  I  couldn't !  I  had  been  living  right  up  to 
the  top  notch  on  the  theory  that  my  income  would,  if 
anything,  have  a  slight  normal  increase  year  by  year. 
I  had  my  principal,  of  course;  but  I  had  been  brought 
up  to  view  the  spending  of  principal — of  invested 

24 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

capital — as  hardly  less  than  a  crime.  Still,  under  the 
circumstances —  Yet,  to  sell  securities  meant  tak- 
ing a  loss  of  from  twenty  to  forty  points.  There  wasn't 
much  fun  in  selling  an  investment  security,  in  order 
to  raise  ten  thousand  dollars,  at  a  cash  loss  of  four 
thousand. 

"You've  got  to  do  it,  old  man!"  Lord  said,  per- 
ceiving what  was  going  on  inside  my  head.  "We  can't 
dispose  of  our  firm  securities  at  these  prices — we've 
had  to  mark  'em  down  an  average  of  thirty  points — 
and  you  can't  sell  yours.  You've  simply  got  to  change 
your  mode  of  living.  Everybody's  doing  it.  You'll 
be  in  excellent  company.  After  all,  it's  our  contribu- 
tion to  the  war !  I  don't  mind  so  much.  It's  nothing 
to  freezing  in  the  trenches.  We  can't  be  stingy  with 
our  dollars  when  other  fellows  are  giving  their  lives, 
can  we?" 

"You're  right,"  I  agreed.  "But  if  you  can  spare 
me  I  guess  I'll  hike  along  up-town.  My  wife  might 
buy  a  fur  coat  or  something ! " 

My  pet  stenographer,  Miss  Peterson,  who,  in  spite 
of  her  halo  of  bronze-colored  hah*,  is  the  most  efficient 
young  woman  I  have  ever  had  the  good  fortune  to 
meet,  had  always  attended  to  my  personal  accounts; 
so  well,  in  fact,  that  I  had  rarely  given  them  any  at- 
tention. Now  I  rang  for  her  and  asked  her  to  make 
me  out  an  itemized  statement  setting  forth  my 
average  yearly  expenditures  for  the  past  five  years. 

25 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

To  my  surprise  I  discovered  that  she  had  already 
done  so. 

"Mr.  Morris  and  Mr.  Lord  both  had  to  go  over 
their  accounts,  so  I  assumed  that  you  would  probably 
wish  to,"  she  said  with  a  smile. 

I  stuffed  the  envelope  into  my  pocket  without  dar- 
ing to  look  at  it,  and  moved  toward  the  door. 

"I'll  be  down  as  usual  in  the  morning,"  I  said  to 
Lord. 

"Not  necessary  at  all!"  he  retorted.  "I  advise 
you  to  stay  up-town  and  take  an  account  of  stock.  I 
won't  expect  you  until  next  Monday;  and  you  needn't 
show  up  then  if  there's  anything  you'd  rather  do." 

I  started  to  take  a  taxi,  recoiled,  and  descended  to 
the  Subway.  While  shooting  up-town  I  surrepti- 
tiously examined  Miss  Peterson's  schedule: 


1912 

$39390  55 

1915 

$41  245  01 

1913  

40,834  77 

1916 

43,871  16 

1914  

40,992.80 

1917  (9  mos.)  .  .  . 

39,656.10 

These  totals  were  neatly  itemized  under  various 
general  headings — such  as  Rent,  Taxes,  Supplies, 
Motor,  Mrs.  Stanton,  Servants,  Travel,  Charity,  Miss 
Margery,  Repairs,  Furnishings,  Medical,  Light  and 
Heat,  and  so  on.  It  made  me  almost  sick  to  look  at 
the  thing.  It  was  preposterous ! 

"1916— Mr.  Stanton— $3,714.27,"  for  instance! 
How  on  earth  could  I  have  spent  any  such  sum  on 

26 


MYSELF—JOHN  STANTON 

myself?  Mentally  I  reviewed  my  disbursements  of 
the  preceding  year.  Yes;  I  had  joined  the  Riding 
Club  at  an  expense,  including  the  initiation  fee,  of 
$400,  and  I  had  ordered  my  usual  number  of  over- 
coats and  suits  at  an  average  of  $90  each.  My  club 
dues  had  come  to  $670  and  my  club  bills  to  $443.20. 
There  were  also  sundry  items  camouflaged  on  my 
stubs  under  the  mystic  symbol  of  "Pk,"  which  stood 
for  poker  losses.  The  amount  of  these  shall  remain 
undisclosed  for  the  sake  of  posterity.  On  the  whole, 
the  $3,714.27  was  pretty  well  explained. 

I  found  my  wife  lunching  in  the  sunlit  private  suite 
at  the  Chatwold  she  had  engaged  to  tide  us  over  tem- 
porarily until  she  could  secure  her  staff  of  servants. 

"Sit  down,"  she  said.  "The  waiter  will  be  back 
presently.  What  will  you  have — poulet  en  casserole 
or  salmis  of  Long  Island  duckling?  The  salade 
russe  is  delicious." 

"I'll  have  a  roast-beef  sandwich  and  a  cup  of 
coffee,"  I  answered  shortly.  "Look  here,  Helen;  just 
make  the  most  of  that  poulet  en  casserole.  I  hate  to 
break  it  to  you — but  this  is  no  place  for  us  I " 

"Why,  John!"  she  exclaimed.  "What  is  the  mat- 
ter ?  Have  we  lost  money  ?  " 

"Don't  you  know  that  we  are  at  war?" 

"Of  course!  What  are  you  going  to  do — buy 
Liberty  Bonds?" 

I  laughed  a  hollow  laugh. 
27 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"  No !  We're  busted — that  is,  we're  fifteen  thousand 
dollars  a  year  poorer  than  when  we  left  New  York;  and 
that  comes  pretty  close  to  busting  us — living  as  we  do." 

She  looked  at  me  wearily.  She  seemed  very  tired. 
I  had  expected  some  sort  of  outburst,  but  nothing 
of  the  sort  occurred. 

"How  much  have  we  got  left?"  she  inquired  vaguely 
after  a  pause. 

"Oh,  something  over  twenty-five  thousand  dollars 
a  year,"  I  answered. 

I  confess  I  had  looked  forward  to  this  disclosure 
with  apprehension  verging  on  panic.  I  was  still  ex- 
actly as  much  in  love  with  Helen  as  the  day  she  had 
become  my  wife;  we  were  perhaps  the  happiest  married 
couple  I  knew.  The  only  thing  that  ever  came  be- 
tween us,  that  in  any  way  detracted  from  our  complete 
sympathy,  was  that  sometimes  I  felt  that  she  expended 
her  intellect  upon  objects  unworthy  of  her.  These 
objects  were  chiefly  concerned  with  the  material  com- 
fort of  her  existence — the  polish  on  the  machinery  of 
her  Me. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  the  polish  had  taken  on  for 
her  a  greater  importance  than  the  machinery.  She 
was  preoccupied  with  appearances.  Everything  in  the 
house  always  had  to  look  exactly  as  if  it  were  new. 
There  were  always  painters  and  upholsterers  about, 
and  my  bills  for  repairs  never  were  less  than  a 
thousand  dollars  a  year.  Our  house  was  a  pattern 

28 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

of  luxury  and  taste.  Our  servants  were  models  of 
dexterity  and  neatness.  Our  cooks  were  inevitably 
mistresses  of  the  culinary  art.  Our  life  ran  as  if 
on  ball  bearings,  without  a  sound,  without  a  hitch. 
Seven  people  could  have  their  breakfasts  in  bed  with- 
out causing  the  slightest  disarrangement  in  our  me- 
nage. Our  friends  said  Helen  was  a  wonderful  house- 
keeper. I  thought  she  was  just  a  wonderful  little 
spender. 

Our  automobile  was  exquisite.  Rene  always  looked 
as  if  he  had  just  stepped  out  of  a  show-case,  and  the 
motor  was  done  over  every  year.  Helen  didn't  seem 
to  have  any  tune  for  the  things  she  and  I  had  regarded 
as  important  when  we  were  engaged.  I  regarded  her 
as  ease-loving — trifling,  superficial. 

I  see  now  that  I  was  wrong — at  least  to  the  extent 
of  thinking  that  it  was  Helen's  real  character  to  be 
like  that.  It  was  rather  that  she  had  simply  let  her- 
self go  with  the  current  and  taken  non-essentials  seri- 
ously because  the  rest  of  her  friends  did  so.  Her 
trouble  was  not  individual;  it  was  endemic.  And  it 
was  allied  to  ophthalmia.  So  I  had  anticipated  tears, 
if  not  a  scene,  when  she  should  learn  our  situation. 
She  looked  a  little  worried,  it  is  true;  but  she  did  not 
protest. 

"I  suppose  it  will  mean  giving  up  the  motor — and 
our  house  ?" 

I  nodded. 

29 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"It  does  seem  too  bad  to  have  to  lose  Rene","  she 
murmured.  "And  the  car  ran  too  beautifully  this 
morning!"  she  added  wistfully.  "However,  I  should 
think  anybody  ought  to  be  able  to  get  along  on  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  a  year  in  war  tune.  I  want  to 
live  as  well  as  I  can,  but  I  don't  want  to  live  any  better. 
If  that's  all  we've  got  we'll  have  to  manage.  I'm  sorry 
for  Margery,  though." 

I  had  been  thinking  of  Margery  myself.  She  was 
in  every  way  a  charming  girl,  and  her  mother  had  for 
years  looked  forward  to  bringing  her  out  in  society 
with  the  customary  New  York  display.  Poor  Mar- 
gery !  There  would  be  mighty  little  chance  for  mag- 
nificence on  our  reduced  income. 

At  that  precise  moment,  however,  I  was  not  think- 
ing of  Margery,  but  of  my  supposedly  ease-loving 
wife.  In  place  of  making  an  indignant  outburst, 
she  sat  there  quite  calmly,  agreeing  without  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation  to  readjust  her  entire  scale  of  life. 
Poor  dear !  I  thought.  She  didn't  know  what  it  was 
going  to  involve.  What  real  sacrifices  she  would  be 
called  upon  to  make,  habituated  as  she  was  to  luxury ! 
But,  whether  she  knew  or  not,  she  was  a  brave  woman 
and  I  admired  her  as  I  never  had  before. 

"Darling!"  I  exclaimed,  putting  my  arm  about 
her,  for  the  waiter  had  not  returned.  "You're  a  real 
little  brick — the  real  stuff !  I  didn't  care  for  myself — 
only  for  you." 

30 


MYSELF—JOHN  STANTON 

She  suddenly  threw  her  arms  about  my  neck  and 
burst  into  tears. 

"Oh,  John !"  she  sobbed.  "I  don't  care  how  I  live. 
We  started  on  nothing  and  we  never  have  been  hap- 
pier than  we  were  in  our  first  little  flat;  but — I  didn't 
tell  you  before — I  didn't  want  to  until  you'd  had  your 
lunch! — but —  Oh,  John,  I'm  frightened  to  death 
about  Jack!" 

"Why?"  I  choked,  startled  at  her  tone.  "What 
about  Jack?" 

She  picked  up  a  newspaper  that  was  lying  beside 
her  and  pointed  to  an  item  on  the  back  sheet;  then 
turned  away  her  head. 

"Gallant  th  to  sail  for  France  next  week,"  I 

read  through  blurred  eyes.  "So  rapid  has  been  the 
improvement  in  the  condition  and  training  of  the 

th  Regiment,  stationed  at  Fort  that  it  is 

now  authoritatively  announced  that  it  will  break 
camp  within  a  few  days  and  sail  within  the  week 
for  the  other  side,  where  the  men  will  receive  in- 
struction in  the  field  from  specially  detailed  French 
army  officers  in  the  use  of  trench-bombs,  raiding, 
etc. 

"Among  the  sons  of  well-known  New  Yorkers  upon 
the  staff  are  Lieutenant  Ogden  Baker,  son  of  Maxwell 
Baker,  of  Park  Avenue;  Lieutenant  John  Stanton, 
Junior " 

For  a  moment  the  motes  in  the  sunlight  swam  in 
31 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

dizzying  circles  and  I  grasped  the  table  to  steady  my- 
self.   Jack !  Jack  going  ? 

"Oh,  Helen!"  I  cried,  wholly  unnerved.  "He 
can't  go!  He's  too  young.  My  God,  it  never  oc- 
curred to  me!  Why,  he's  only  a  boy!  I'll  go  to 
Washington — see  Wilson.  It  would  be  a  crime! 
I " 

I  sank  down  at  the  table  and  put  my  face  in  my 
hands.  Then  I  heard  my  wife's  voice  saying: 

"John,  dear,  it's  all  right — it's  simply  splendid! 
Of  course  it's  a  surprise;  but  you — you  wouldn't  have 
it  otherwise !  It's  where  he  ought  to  be  I  We  should 
be  the  proudest  people  in  New  York.  Our  boy  is 
going  among  the  very  first  to  fight  to  make  the  world 
safe  for  democracy,  for  Christian  ideals;  so  that  there 
never  can  be  such  an  awful,  awful  war  again;  and — 
and — and —  Oh,  John!  John!  I  can't  bear  it!" 

She  threw  herself  down  beside  me  and  held  me 
tight.  We  sat  there  clinging  to  each  other  for  some 
time.  Then  Helen  raised  her  head  and  wiped  her 
eyes. 

"John,  dear,"  she  said,  "let's  go  up  to  the  house. 
I'll  leave  word  for  Margery  at  the  office.  I  can't 
think  in  this  place.  I  want  to  have  my  own  things 
round  me — my  own  books  and  pictures  and  furniture 
— not  all  this  gilt  and  plush !  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  were 
all  here — at  this  hotel.  I'm  sure  we  can  talk  things 
over  better  there  than  in  this  horrible  suite  1" 

32 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

I  paid  my  bill  to  the  dapper  young  gentleman  at 
the  hotel  office,  who  seemed  rather  surprised  at  our 
sudden  change  of  plans  and  who  "trusted  that  every- 
thing had  been  satisfactory";  stated  that  I  would 
send  for  my  baggage  that  evening,  helped  Helen  into 
a  taxi,  and  started  for  Seventy-second  Street.  It  was 
a  lovely  afternoon,  sunlight  everywhere,  children  play- 
ing with  their  nurses  in  Park  Avenue,  the  streets 
clean  and  quiet;  nothing  seemed  changed  since  we 
had  gone  away.  As  we  turned  into  our  own  block 
Helen  leaned  out  of  the  window  of  the  taxi  and  looked 
up  at  the  house. 

"How  nice!"  she  exclaimed.  "Some  one  has  hung 
out  a  big  American  flag !  It  must  have  been  Henry  1" 

Sure  enough,  there  over  our  white  Colonial  doorway, 
the  pole  suspended  from  the  iron  grill  of  the  library 
windows,  curling  and  uncurling  in  the  soft  afternoon 
breeze,  floated  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

"Splendid!"  I  answered.  "It  was  bully  of  your 
brother  to  do  that." 

Then  my  eye  caught  another  and  smaller  flag  be- 
neath— a  red  flag  enclosing  an  oblong  field  of  white 
upon  which  was  a  single  star  of  blue. 

"Hello!"  I  cried.  "What  do  you  suppose  that  is? 
Do  you  see  that  other  flag,  Helen?" 

"Why,  yes!"  she  answered  curiously.  "I  wonder 
what  it  can  mean ! " 

The  decrepit  taxi-driver  touched  his  hat. 
33 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"Pardon  me,  ma'am/1  he  said.  "That  blue  star 
means  that  some  one  from  this  house  has  gone  to  the 
front.  God  bless  him,  whoever  he  is ! " 

We  looked  at  each  other  in  silence. 

"God  bless  him/'  I  repeated,  though  my  lips  quiv- 
ered, "  whoever  he  is  I " 

How  familiar,  yet  how  strange,  seemed  the  silent 
interior  of  our  house,  with  its  shrouded  furniture,  its 
shadowy  corners,  its  drawn  curtains.  For  the  first 
time  I  realized  what  it  meant  to  me — to  Helen — to 
all  of  us.  There  was  the  room  where  Margery  had 
been  born.  There  was  Jack's  half  workshop,  half 
stateroom,  with  that  yellow  Teddy-bear  he  had  never 
quite  brought  himself  to  relinquish,  sitting  astride 
the  football  he  had  forced  across  the  St.  Mark's  goal- 
line  for  a  victory  for  Groton. 

I  closed  the  door  quickly  lest  Helen  should  see  it. 
Yet  I  felt  that  it  was  best  that  we  should  give  up  our 
home;  best  to  surrender  it  to  the  unsympathetic  hands 
of  strangers  than  not  to  do  our  bit  in  teaching  the 
rest  of  the  nation  the  lesson  of  economy.  At  any  price 
— however  seemingly  extravagant — a  hotel  would  be 
cheaper  than  housekeeping. 

"Well,"  I  said  finally  when,  after  our  inspection, 
we  had  gone  down-stairs  into  the  library  and  thrown 
open  the  windows  to  the  afternoon  sun,  "it's  tough, 
but  we'll  have  to  give  it  up ! " 

"Isn't  there  anything  else  we  could  do  first?" 
34 


MYSELF-JOHN  STANTON 

asked  my  wife.  "I  would  do  almost  anything  rather 
than  lose  my  home  1" 

"The  only  way  to  really  save  any  substantial  sum 
of  money  is  to  make  a  radical  change  in  our  mode  of 
life,"  I  answered.  "You  would  find  it  almost  im- 
possible to  give  up  living  here  as  you  have  always 
lived.  Let's  do  the  thing  right  and  start  differently." 

Helen  made  no  further  protest,  except  to  give  a 
little  sigh  as  she  glanced  at  the  portraits  of  my  father 
and  mother,  which  hung  on  either  side  of  the  fireplace. 

"All  right,  dear,"  she  agreed.  "If  we  must,  that 
is  all  there  is  to  it." 

There  was,  however,  one  factor  in  the  situation 
upon  which  it  appeared  that  we  had  not  sufficiently 
reckoned.  It  had  never  occurred  to  me  that  we  should 
have  any  difficulty  about  leasing  our  house  if  we 
cared  to  do  so;  but  a  brief  colloquy  over  the  tele- 
phone with  our  real-estate  agent  was  enough  to  satisfy 
me  that  it  would  be  practically  impossible  for  us  to 
find  a  tenant  who  would  be  willing  to  pay  enough  rent 
to  enable  us  either  to  take  an  apartment  or  go  to  a 
hotel  and  effect  any  real  saving.  Practically  every 
house  in  New  York  was  for  rent,  he  said;  in  fact,  there 
were  five  other  houses  in  our  own  block  on  the  mar- 
ket. 

Everybody  had  gone  to  Washington,  or  was  go- 
ing to  spend  the  whiter  hi  the  country;  he  mentioned 
several  of  our  friends.  People  were  cutting  down  on 

35 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

every  hand.  We  might  get  a  tenant  at  about  half 
what  our  house  might  normally  be  expected  to  bring; 
but  otherwise  he  could  not  give  us  much  encourage- 
ment. The  renting  market  had  started  out  well;  but 
lately  there  had  been  a  bad  slump.  It  was  obvious 
that,  unless  we  practically  gave  our  house  away,  we 
should  have  either  to  close  it  up  or  live  in  it  ourselves. 

We  considered  the  former  course  first.  By  going 
to  a  hotel  we  should  save  light,  heat,  repairs,  various 
maintenance  charges,  and  servants'  wages.  We  should 
also  not  have  to  run  our  kitchen.  We  had  previously 
kept  ten  servants.  It  would  be  much  cheaper  for  the 
three  of  us  and  our  maid  to  board  at  a  hotel — say,  the 
Chatwold. 

I  telephoned  to  my  dapper  young  friend  there  and 
inquired  what  apartments  were  still  available  for  the 
winter.  He  replied  that  there  was  one  four-room  suite 
left — but  only  one — which  for  a  term  of  six  months  he 
would  let  me — "me" — have  for  nine  hundred  and 
seventy-five  dollars  a  month,  a  substantial  conces- 
sion from  ruling  rates !  I  thanked  him  and  hung  up. 
We  figured  out  that,  on  the  basis  of  the  data  in  hand, 
it  would  cost  the  three  of  us — with  Helen's  maid — on  a 
conservative  estimate,  not  a  cent  less  than  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  a  month  to  live  at  the  Chatwold. 
For  eight  months  that  would  amount  to  twelve 
thousand  dollars — practically  as  much  as  it  would 
cost  us  to  run  our  house. 

36 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

We  telephoned  to  many  of  the  other  hotels;  but 
the  best  we  could  do  was  four  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars a  month,  with  an  estimated  dining-room  charge 
of  at  least  four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  more.  This 
last  was  in  an  excellent  hotel  on  a  side  street,  but  where 
we  knew  the  rooms  were  small,  rather  dark,  and  dis- 
tinctly unattractive.  Nevertheless,  to  go  there  for 
the  winter,  even  if  we  sacrificed  our  home,  would  be 
to  effect  a  substantial  saving.  To  me  it  seemed  the 
most  sensible  thing  to  do,  and  I  said  so.  But  Helen 
answered: 

"John,  I  don't  want  to  go  to  a  hotel.  I  want  the 
quiet  and  order  and  privacy  of  my  own  home.  I 
want  my  own  family  life.  We've  lived  here  twenty 
years,  and  this  house — our  things — are  all  part  of  us. 
It's  the  physical  centre  of  our  lives — whatever  they 
are.  I  don't  want  Margery  hi  a  hotel;  it's  far  better 
for  her  to  stay  here,  where  she  can  receive  her  friends 
quietly,  instead  of  giving  them  tea  hi  front  of  a  string 
band." 

"I  agree  with  you,"  I  replied  patiently.  "Of 
course  I'd  rather  live  here.  But  what  are  we  going 
to  do  if  we  can't  afford  it?" 

Then  it  was  that  Helen  showed  the  rare  and  pene- 
trating quality  of  mind  which  had  compelled  my  ad- 
miration so  often  in  her  earlier  years  and  which  lat- 
terly had  seemed  to  be  dormant. 

"John,"  she  retorted  eagerly,  "do  you  know  what 
37 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

you  are  urging  me  to  do?  You  are  proposing  that  we 
should  run  away — try  to  escape  from  our  responsibil- 
ities, from  the  duty  to  economize  which  the  war  has 
forced  upon  us.  I  know  it's  all  on  my  account.  You 
think  I'm  a  slave  to  comfort.  Well,  perhaps  I  have 
been.  Maybe  the  war  will  liberate  a  lot  of  people. 
We  have  suddenly  lost  over  a  third  of  OUT  income; 
but,  even  so,  our  income  is  about  four  times  what  my 
father  and  mother  lived  on  right  here  in  New  York. 
I've  always  known  that  we — that  everybody — spent 
too  much  money;  but  it's  human  nature  to  want  to 
live  the  way  one's  friends  live. 

"Now  we  can't  any  longer.  We've  got  to  live  on 
what  we've  got.  If  we're  obliged  to  save  fifteen  thou- 
sand dollars,  let's  save  it — not  rush  off  to  a  hotel,  to 
even  greater  extravagance.  There's  no  calamity — no 
sorrow — no  sickness  that  doesn't  bring  some  good 
with  it.  If  we  ought  to  change  our  mode  of  life,  let's 
change  it — and  be  glad  of  the  chance.  If  I  run  off  to 
a  hotel,  where  all  I  shall  have  to  do,  if  I  want  any- 
thing, is  to  press  a  button;  if  I  make  you  give  up 
your  home  for  the  sake  of  my  own  convenience;  if  I 
turn  coward  when  all  the  world  is  full  of  courage — 
why,  John,  I  shan't  be  able  to  look  at  myself  in  the 
glass!" 

I  don't  think  I  ever  loved  Helen  more  than  at  that 
moment;  and  if  she  had  realized  what  her  words 
meant  to  me  she  would  have  felt  repaid  a  thousand 

38 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

times  for  any  future  sacrifices.  For  several  years  I 
had  felt  uneasy  at  the  monetary  cost  of  an  existence 
that  not  only  left  us  nothing  to  spend  upon  many 
things  I  should  greatly  have  enjoyed — European 
travel,  for  instance — but  rendered  our  contributions 
to  charity  negligible. 

I  had  really  been  poor  on  forty  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  frequently  denying  myself  things  that  men  with 
half  my  income  regarded  as  matters  of  course.  Taxi- 
cabs,  for  instance.  My  New  England  training  had 
never  enabled  me  to  expend  on  the  mere  maintenance 
of  our  household  the  huge  sum  it  required  with  any 
degree  of  complacence,  for  I  knew  in  my  heart  that  we 
were  making  an  end  of  what  should  have  been  the 
means  to  an  end.  Our  sole  object  in  life  had  come 
to  be  ease  of  living.  And,  even  so,  though  we  had 
made  a  science  of  luxury  we  had  not  achieved  our 
purpose. 

The  machinery  of  existence  had  been  more  im- 
portant than  existence  itself.  The  servants  had  out- 
numbered the  family  three  to  one.  Employed  to 
reduce  responsibility — that  was  why  we  had  so  many 
maids,  chambermaids,  parlor-maids,  kitchen-maids, 
and  laundresses — the  irony  of  the  situation  lay  in  the 
fact  that,  instead  of  eliminating  responsibility,  all 
these  people  only  added  to  it.  The  more  "help"  we 
had  to  work  for  us,  the  less  help  they  were  and  the 
greater  the  effort  required  to  superintend  their  inac- 

39 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

tivities.  Instead  of  paying  servants  In  order  to  keep 
house,  we  kept  house  in  order  to  pay  servants  to  live 
with  us. 

Moreover,  houses,  horses,  yachts,  motors — all  de- 
manded constant  attention;  but  unfortunately  it  was 
an  attention  that  required  no  physical  exertion.  We 
had  ceased  absolutely  to  do  anything  for  ourselves. 
Our  wives  grew  fat  from  their  everlasting  motor- 
ing. We — the  supposed  workers — were  borne  to 
and  from  business — miles — in  luxurious  limousines. 
Even  when  we  went  out  to  play  golf,  we  were  car- 
ried. In  our  own  homes  we  went  up  and  down  in 
elevators. 

None  of  us  ever  put  foot  in  a  street-car  or  the  Sub- 
way. If  we  went  to  dinner  in  the  next  block  we  sent 
for  Rene"  and  the  automobile.  We  were  soft — perhaps 
even  worse!  I  knew  it;  and  now — thank  heaven! — 
I  knew  that  Helen  knew  it.  Yet  we  never  should  have 
thought  of  changing  the  system  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  war.  Should  we  change  ?  Could  we  change  ? 
Wouldn't  the  sacrifice  be  too  great  ?  Fifteen  thousand 
dollars ! 

"You're  all  right,  Helen!"  I  exclaimed,  shoving 
the  cigar-box  to  one  side  and  lighting  a  pipe.  "Let's 
see  if  we  can  do  it!" 

I  pulled  Miss  Peterson's  expense  sheet  from  my 
pocket  and  sat  down  beside  her. 

"Do  it?  Of  course  we  can  do  it!  Why,  i.  John, 
40 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

imagine  not  being  able  to  get  along  on  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  a  year!" 

She  took  the  sheet  from  my  hand  and  began  going 
over  it,  item  by  item.  Naturally,  we  could  not  do 
anything  about  our  real-estate  and  water  taxes,  life 
and  fire  insurance  premiums.  These  we  passed  by. 
But  we  had  always  taken  a  house  on  Long  Island  for 
the  summer  at  an  approximate  rental  of  from  twenty- 
five  hundred  to  thirty-five  hundred  dollars;  and  this 
we  decided  we  could  cut  to  fifteen  hundred — or  stay  in 
town.  My  own  expenses  I  unhesitatingly  cut  to 
twelve  hundred  dollars,  and  Helen  surprised  me  by 
saying  that  she  could  do  quite  beautifully  on  two 
thousand  dollars.  "Why  should  I  want  any  new 
clothes  this  winter?"  she  asked. 

Margery  would  have  to  get  along  on  one  thousand 
dollars  instead  of  her  accustomed  two  thousand. 
Jack — I  tried  to  dodge  his  name,  but  Helen  insisted 
on  jerking  me  bravely  back — Jack  would  cost  us  prac- 
tically nothing.  We  decided  -to  cut  out  the  motor  for 
the  seven  months  in  the  city — a  saving  of  at  least  two 
thousand  dollars;  to  sell  our  opera  tickets — two  hun- 
dred and  seventy-six  dollars;  to  buy  no  new  furnish- 
ings for  the  house,  keep  no  men  servants,  reduce  the 
number  of  maids,  and  put  the  kitchen  on  a  war  basis. 

For  what  it  is  worth,  here  is  how  we  proposed  to 
save  on  ten  items  our  fifteen  thousand  seven  hundred 
dollars: 

41 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 


Actual 
average 
per  year 
for  past 
five 
years 

Pro- 
posed 
allow-' 
ance  for 
1918 

Estimated 
saving 

John  Stanton  —  personal  

$2000 

$1  200 

$800 

Helen  Stanton  —  personal  

3,500 

2000 

1  500 

Margery  Stanton 

2000 

1  000 

1  000 

John  Stanton,  Junior  

2000 

2000 

Summer  cottage  

3,000 

1,500 

1  500 

Opera  theatre,  and  so  on  .  .  . 

500 

100 

400 

Servants  

5200 

3500 

1700 

Supplies  

8,500 

4,250 

4,250 

Automobile                      .    ... 

4300 

2300 

2000 

Short  trips,  and  so  on  

500 

500 

Total  saving  

$15  650 

After  all,  what  did  giving  up  the  motor  for  the 
winter  really  mean  to  me? — although  it  cost  me  not 
a  cent  less  than  twelve  dollars  a  day;  or  my  vacuous- 
faced  English  butler  and  footman — why  were  they 
not  in  Flanders? — or  the  few  clubs  on  Fifth  Avenue, 
whose  portals  I  rarely  entered;  or  my  seats  at  the 
opera — heretofore  often  occupied  by  indigent  female 
relatives;  or  the  elaborate  cuisine  we  had  previously 
been  accustomed  to  maintain  chiefly  for  the  gastro- 
nomical  entertainment  of  the  ten  voracious  men  and 
maid  servants  who  had  hitherto  made  our  house 
their  home,  their  restaurant,  and  their  club? 

In  reality,  nothing  at  all.  I  should  not  even  be  in- 
convenienced by  any  of  these  reductions.  In  point  of 
fact,  I  could  surrender,  with  entire  equanimity,  the 

42 


MYSELF— JOHN  STANTON 

idea  of  having  a  cottage  at  the  seaside,  since  I  was 
infinitely  more  contented  in  my  own  home,  and  com- 
muting tired  me  to  death.  There  was  not  an  item  on 
our  revised  budget  that  needed  to  be  a  penny  larger 
for  our  entire  comfort.  And  yet  we  should  save  over 
fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year  and  be  living  quite 
within  my  income — war-taxes  included. 

It  set  me  thinking.  I  dare  say  it  set  Helen  think- 
ing, too.  What  did  our  previous  expenditure  of  that 
fifteen  thousand  dollars  represent?  Our  dependence 
on  a  conventional  luxury  that  was  really  not  luxury  at 
all,  but  an  impediment  to  freedom !  It  was  the  price 
we  had  paid  simply  to  live  like  our  friends;  to  be 
thought  well  off  and  successful.  Yet  we  were  ill  off. 
We  had  ceased  to  know  the  verve  that  comes  only 
from  constant  physical  activity;  we  had  lost  spring, 
bodily  and  mental;  our  moral  and  physical  attack; 
our  ability  to  handle  ourselves — in  a  word,  our  effi- 
ciency. We  had  lost  the  mastery  of  our  own  souls  at 
a  cost  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

Along  with  this  I  experienced  the  somewhat  less 
meritorious  reflection  that  if  I  could  get  along  on 
fifteen  thousand  dollars  less  when  my  earning  capacity 
was  entirely  cut  off,  I  should  achieve  wealth  when 
that  income  should  be  restored.  Should  I  ever  again 
be  satisfied  to  pay  fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year  just 
to  oil  the  machinery  of  my  existence?  Why,  what 

43 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

could  I  not  do  for  myself  and  for  others  with  such  a 
sum  of  money?  Was  I,  in  fact,  giving  up  anything? 
To  this  extent  the  war  had  proved  a  blessing  instead 
of  a  burden.  I  was  making  no  real  sacrifice. 

Through  the  smoke  wreaths  rising  from  my  pipe 
my  eye  caught  in  the  window  the  gentle  swaying  of 
the  red  flag  with  its  single  blue  star.  I  turned  to  find 
Helen  was  gazing  at  it  also. 

"John,"  she  said  slowly,  "I've  been  thinking  that, 
after  all,  we're  not  going  to  do  enough.  We've  only 
been  planning  how  to  live  on  our  income.  I  read  to- 
day that  there  was  danger  the  Liberty  Loan  might 
not  be  fully  subscribed.  Think  what  it  would  mean 
if  we  sent  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  young  men 
over  to  fight  and  didn't  give  them  the  proper  backing! 
It  would  be  terrible!  We  ought  to  subscribe  to  the 
loan,  whether  we  have  the  money  or  not;  no  matter 
whether  we  see  our  way  clear  to  do  it  or  not.  Every- 
body ought  to  save  every  cent  and  lend  it  to  the  gov- 
ernment. Don't  you  think  we  ought  to  subscribe  for 
at  least  twenty  thousand  dollars  ?  " 

"If  you  tried  to  save  twenty  thousand  dollars 
more,"  I  retorted,  "you  would  have  to  go  and  live  in 
a  boarding-house  on  a  side  street!  I  don't  suppose 
we  shall  have  to  save  it,  though.  We  can  sell  some 
securities  and  lend  Uncle  Sam  the  money.  We'll  have 
to  take  quite  a  loss." 

"I  don't  mind!"  she  answered.  "Nothing  is  really 
44 


MYSELF— JOHN   STANTON 

a  sacrifice  that  doesn't  hurt.  Next  to  wearing  a  uni- 
form, I  guess  the  proudest  badge  of  honor  any  of  us 
can  have  is  going  to  be  a  shabby  suit  of  clothes." 

We  sat  there  without  saying  anything  more  until 
the  room  fell  into  shadow  and  the  street-lamp  across 
the  way  was  lighted.  I  was  just  going  to  suggest 
that  we  go  out  to  dinner  somewhere  when  the  front 
door-bell  rang  sharply. 

Thinking  it  might  be  a  telegram,  I  went  down- 
stairs and  opened  the  door.  Outside  stood  a  tall  fig- 
ure in  khaki.  Messenger-boys  did  not  dress  like  that 
now — did  they?  Then  I  felt  myself  being  hugged 
violently  and  heard  Jack's  voice  shouting: 

"Hello,  dad !  It's  ripping  to  have  you  back  again ! 
How's  mother?  And  isn't  it  great  that  the  regiment 
sails  week  after  next!" 


45 


II 

MY  HOUSEHOLD 

Helen,  Margery,  and  I  had  our  breakfast  next 
morning  of  coffee  and  rolls  served  in  the  sunny  win- 
dow of  the  sitting-room  by  Mrs.  Gavin,  our  caretaker. 
During  the  preceding  evening,  while  Jack  had  been 
with  us,  we  had  thought  of  nothing  but  the  hideous 
gap  his  pending  departure  for  France  would  make 
in  our  family  circle;  but  now  that  he  had  gone  back 
to  camp  we  had  tune  to  face  the  concrete  problems 
the  war  had  evolved  for  us. 

It  had  been  the  first  night  we  had  spent  in  our  own 
home  for  nearly  a  year,  and  this  was  the  dawn  of  a 
new  sort  of  existence.  Heretofore  we  had  taken  no 
thought  of  the  morrow  or,  for  that  matter,  of  to-day. 
When  we  opened  the  house  in  the  autumn  we  simply 
telegraphed  to  a  firm  of  professional  house-cleaners  to 
come  with  their  vacuum  tubes,  their  rotary  sweepers, 
their  acids  and  varnishes,  and  get  the  place  ready — 
usually  at  a  cost  of  about  three  hundred  dollars. 
Then  we  sent  on  ahead  five  or  six  servants,  including 
the  cook,  to  prepare  the  way,  and  arrived,  in  due 
course,  in  a  perfectly  ordered  and  well-running  estab- 
lishment. 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

When  we  returned  from  six  weeks  in  Paris  or  Lon- 
don our  motor  met  us  at  the  dock,  I  found  my  dress 
clothes  laid  out  in  their  customary  place,  and  dinner 
was  served  by  the  butler  and  the  second  man  just  as 
if  we  had  not  been  away  at  all.  But  now  there  was 
to  be  no  butler  and  no  second  man.  Our  resolution 
taken  the  afternoon  before  was  to  be  put  to  the  test. 
Would  Helen  be  able  to  manage  it?  Or,  if  she  could 
manage  it,  could  she  stand  it?  However,  I  saw  no 
weakening  in  her  face  as  I  lit  my  cigarette  and  glanced 
at  her  across  the  table. 

"You  had  better  send  for  Rene,"  she  said,  smiling. 
"The  sooner  you  tell  him  he  must  go  the  better.  I'm 
going  down-town  to  engage  a  cook." 

In  spite  of  Helen's  cheerfulness  I  realized  what 
giving  up  her  motor  would  mean  to  her;  how  phys- 
ically dependent  upon  it  she  had  become.  I  hated  the 
idea  of  my  wife  hanging  on  to  a  strap  in  the  street-cars 
while  the  boors  in  the  neighboring  seats  ignored  her 
sex.  Besides,  how  could  Margery,  with  her  many 
social  engagements,  possibly  manage  to  get  along 
without  it?  And  if  we  lost  the  peerless  Rene,  could 
we  ever  find  another  treasure  like  him?  No;  I  would 
find  some  other  and  less  drastic  economy ! 

"Helen,"  I  said,  "I've  been  thinking  it  over,  and  I 
feel  that  it  would  be  bad  business  for  us  to  give  up 
Rene.  We  couldn't  replace  him.  Probably  we  can 

cut  down  on  something  else  that " 

47 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

But  Helen  had  risen  to  her  feet  with  a  gesture  of 
finality. 

"No,  John,"  she  interrupted;  "that  has  been  de- 
cided, once  and  for  all.  It's  a  matter  of  conscience.  I 
shall  not  keep  the  car  this  winter." 

"Anyhow,"  I  urged  feebly,  "you  might  as  well  run 
it  for  a  few  days  while  you  are  getting  settled — say, 
for  a  week.  It  seems  foolish  not  to,  you  know,  when 
it's  standing  right  there  round  the  corner  in  the  garage." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  don't  want  to  begin  using  the  motor.  I  don't 
trust  myself.  If  I  once  started  I  mightn't  want  to 
give  it  up.  Let  me  have  ten  cents  for  the  bus,  please ! " 

"You're  a  brave  woman,  Helen!"  I  answered. 
"Well,  here's  your  dime!" 

"You'll  need  a  chore  man,  daddy,"  volunteered  my 
daughter  as  my  wife  drew  on  her  gloves.  "The  house 
is  like  an  ice-chest." 

"Didn't  we  have  one — an  Italian?"  I  inquired. 

"Yes,"  answered  Helen.  "I  think  Mrs.  Gavin  can 
find  him  for  you.  If  you  can't  get  hold  of  him  you 
might  start  a  fire  in  the  furnace  yourself." 

I  said  nothing.  Why  not?  If  Helen  could  go  down- 
town in  the  bus,  surely  I  ought  to  be  able  to  start  a 
fire!  But  my  heart  was  filled  with  more  than  mere 
misgivings. 

"Well,  what  is  Margery  going  to  do?"  I  inquired 
lightly.  "What's  her  particular  bit?" 

48 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

"I  think  Margery  had  better  go  over  the  linen  and 
china  and  see  if  there  is  any  of  it  left,"  replied  her 
mother.  "After  that  she  can  collaborate  with  Mrs. 
Gavin  in  getting  lunch." 

I  bade  my  wife  farewell  at  the  front  door  and,  hav- 
ing turned  Margery  loose  among  the  china,  sought  the 
whereabouts  of  our  chore  man.  But  Mrs.  Gavin  had 
not  seen  Angelo  that  morning  and  was  ignorant  of 
his  place  of  abode. 

We  had  occupied  our  house  for  nearly  twenty  years, 
but  only  once  before  did  I  recall  having  descended  to 
the  lower  regions  presided  over  by  that  being  so 
singularly  misnamed  the  useful  man.  At  any  rate,  I 
had  always  looked  upon  him  as  anything  but  useful — 
a  fiction,  a  frill,  a  foolish  concession  to  the  unwill- 
ingness of  the  modern  domestic  to  do  any  real 
work. 

"Now,"  said  I  to  myself,  with  a  growing  sense  of 
virtue,  of  mastery  of  my  own  soul,  "we'll  begin  to  go 
at  things  in  the  right  way — thoroughly,  from  the 
ground  up." 

The  cellar  stairs  were  dark  and  I  had  to  reascend  to 
the  kitchen  to  procure  a  candle. 

"You'll  spoil  yer  beautiful  clothes,"  warned  the 
solicitous  Mrs.  Gavin.  "You'll  get  ashes  all  over 
yerself!" 

"You  don't  know  me!"  I  retorted.  "It's  no  trick 
to  make  a  fire  I  Why,  when  I  was  a  boy  I  always — " 

49 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

But  she  had  vanished  into  the  mysterious  distances 
of  the  laundry. 

Our  cellar  seemed  curiously  unfamiliar  as  I  stood 
with  the  candle  elevated  above  my  head,  and  muffled 
noises  from  the  street  outside  gave  me  the  feeling  of 
being  immersed  in  an  Egyptian  tomb — like  a  helpless 
Rhadames  without  his  Ai'da.  A  multitude  of  pipes  of 
every  size  and  crookedness  writhed  round  a  compli- 
cated apparatus  which  I  felt  reasonably  confident  was 
the  furnace.  Dust  lay  thick  everywhere  and  scattered 
pieces  of  coal  endangered  my  equilibrium  at  every  step. 

Timidly  I  opened  one  of  the  doors.  It  was  choked 
with  ashes  and  cinders.  Curse  the  dago!  I  must 
clean  out  the  grate  before  I  could  start  the  fire.  I 
shall  not  describe  the  agonizing  scene  that  followed, 
but  at  the  end  of  a  gruelling  half-hour,  reeking  with 
sweat,  and  my  hair,  mouth,  and  eyes  filled  with  dust, 
I  exultantly  laid  in  the  furnace  a  lot  of  newspapers 
and  kindling  and  put  on  a  shovel  or  two  of  coal  as  a 
starter.  I  then  discovered  that  I  had  no  matches; 
and  as  it  did  not  occur  to  me  to  make  use  of  the  candle, 
which  I  had  stuck  on  the  coal-bin,  I  was  obliged  to 
ascend  to  the  kitchen  again. 

Mrs.  Gavin  controlled  her  features  with  difficulty. 

"Have  you  turned  on  the  water,  Mr.  Stanton?" 
she  asked  innocently.  "You  know  it's  a  hot-water 
furnace.  I've  fixed  the  radiators  up-stairs,  already, 
for  you." 

50 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

I  hadn't  known  it  was  a  hot-water  furnace.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  that  missing  match  I  might  have 
burned  the  bottom  off  the  boiler  or  blown  the  whole 
thing  through  the  roof ! 

"Of  course  I  shall  turn  on  the  water!"  I  replied 
haughtily,  receiving  the  match-box.  "What  did  you 
suppose  I  would  do?" 

"There's  an  indicator,  too,"  she  continued  vaguely. 

"Oh,  yes,  of  course — an  indicator,"  I  repeated  help- 
lessly. 

Down  in  the  darkness  among  the  pipes  I  discovered 
at  least  five  different  handles  by  which  I  thought  the 
water  might  be  let  into  the  furnace.  One  by  one  I 
turned  them,  without  result.  Apparently  there  wasn't 
any  water.  Perhaps  it  wasn't  a  hot-water  furnace 
after  all !  Then  I  found  a  curious  little  valve,  and  on 
moving  it  received  an  answering  gurgle,  followed  by  a 
rush.  Water !  It  was  like  finding  it  in  the  Sahara ! 

With  the  fast-dying  candle  I  now  searched  for  the 
indicator.  I  did  not  know  what  it  was  supposed  to 
indicate,  but  I  dared  not  disregard  it.  Yes;  there  it 
was,  right  on  top  of  the  furnace.  Lifting  the  candle, 
I  perceived  that  it  had  two  hands — a  red  one  and  a 
black  one.  The  red  one  pointed  through  the  accumu- 
lated dust  of  ages  to  the  number  100,  while  the  black 
one  apparently  had  its  affections  permanently  affixed 
upon  zero. 

Meantime  the  water  continued  to  run.  Where  was 
51 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

it  running  to?  A  furnace,  like  a  human  being,  must 
have  a  limit  to  its  capacity.  I  began  to  be  worried. 
Suppose  the  water,  having  flooded  all  the  hidden  veins 
and  arteries  of  the  furnace  mechanism,  were  now  leap- 
ing gayly  over  the  top  of  some  tank  or  basin,  to  come 
presently  pouring  down  the  stairs,  bearing  Mrs.  Gavin 
along  with  it,  like  a  female  Charlie  Chaplin.  Why  had 
I  ever  tried  to  start  the  furnace,  anyway  ?  I  reversed 
the  handle  of  the  valve. 

I  was  now  just  about  where  I  had  started,  after  the 
lapse  of  an  hour.  Then  I  said  to  myself: 

"Stanton,  you  have  lived  in  this  house  twenty 
years.  This  furnace  has  kept  you  lukewarm  in  winter 
and  made  you  swelter  in  spring  and  autumn.  You 
would  have  suffered — perhaps  died — without  it.  You 
need  it  in  your  business.  You  cannot  economize  on 
it  without  reckless  extravagance  in  doctors.  It  is  the 
axis  of  your  domestic  sphere.  Either  you  or  it 
must  be  master  here!  This  is  a  test  of  character. 
Light  that  fire — or  be  forever  disgraced  in  your  own 
eyes  and  those  of  Mrs.  Gavin." 

Meantime  that  furnace  was  sitting  there  with  its 
mouth  wide  open  and  its  tongue  in  its  cheek.  I  glared 
back  at  it  resentfully.  The  indicator  was  still  im- 
mutable. Then  suddenly  it  dawned  upon  me  that  the 
water  had  run  out  of  the  furnace  as  fast  as  it  had  run 
in.  I  must  prevent  it,  somehow.  Down  on  my  hands 
and  knees  I  went  until  I  found  another  handle,  back 

52 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

of  the  damper.  It  yielded  to  my  touch.  Again  I 
turned  on  the  water.  A  clucking  sound  became  au- 
dible. Something  was  happening  to  the  indicator! 
Aha!  The  black  arrow  had  moved.  Cluck-cluck! 
It  was  jumping  ahead  like  a  taximeter!  I  leaped 
upon  the  valve  and  shut  off  the  water.  At  last ! 

My  hand  trembled  as  I  closed  the  furnace-door  and 
lit  the  fire.  Was  it  fatigue,  was  it  excitement,  or  was 
it  spiritual  exaltation  ?  I  believe  that  it  was  the  last. 
Carefully  adjusting  draft  and  damper,  I  climbed  the 
stairs  to  the  kitchen.  I  had  the  feeling  of  being  a  real 
man.  I  was  the  boss — the  owner — of  that  furnace. 
No  one  could  give  me  any  back  talk  about  furnaces — 
hot-water  or  otherwise — again !  No  chore  man  could 
put  anything  across  on  me. 

Mrs.  Gavin  seemed  to  have  gone  out,  but  as  I 
emerged  from  the  shadows  of  the  passage  I  came  face 
to  face  with  an  enraged  and  malevolent  Italian — 
Angelo. 

"Who  you  fell'  dat  getta  my  job?" 

I  have  described  my  encounter  with  the  furnace — 
accurate  in  every  detail — hi  order  that  the  reader  may 
fully  appreciate  the  parlous  state  of  my  ignorance  of 
the  physical  mechanism  of  my  own  life.  I  had  been 
utterly  helpless  in  my  own  house.  If  anything,  no 
matter  how  trifling,  went  wrong  with  the  gas,  elec- 
tricity, plumbing,  heating,  or  elevator  I  had  to  tell 

53 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

the  butler  to  send  for  a  gas-fitter,  plumber,  steam- 
fitter,  or  electrician. 

Emerging  from  that  cellar,  I  had  to  admit  that  An- 
gelo — like  Gunga  Din — was  a  better  man  than  myself. 
I  did  not  know  how  to  turn  the  water  on  or  off,  or  the 
gas  and  electricity,  though  the  Commissioner  of  Gas, 
Water,  and  Electricity  was  an  ultimate  friend  of  mine. 
I  was  ignorant  of  the  whereabouts  of  the  gas-meter 
and  the  electric-meter,  and  I  did  not  even  know  whether 
I  had  a  water-meter  or  not.  I  had  no  idea  where  the 
tank  was — or  if  I  had  one. 

I  had  never  asked  the  price  of  coal;  how  much  was 
ordered;  or  how  much,  in  fact,  I  got.  I  paid  my  bills 
without  question.  The  coal  man,  the  wood  man,  the 
iceman,  the  milkman,  the  butcher,  the  grocer,  the 
baker,  and  even  the  dry-goods  man,  could  have  sent 
me  in  bills  to  any  amount  for  undelivered  goods,  and  I 
should  have  paid  them  cheerfully. 

My  faith  in  the  honesty  of  my  fellows  above 
Forty-second  Street  might  not  have  been  able  to  move 
mountains;  but  I  am  sure  it  was  worth  thousands — to 
somebody.  Yet  in  business  I  watched  with  an!  eagle 
eye  the  well-dressed  gentlemen  with  whom  I  dealt 
and  took  nothing  whatsoever  on  faith.  As  a  business 
man  I  was  from  Missouri;  as  a  householder  in  a  great 
metropolis  I  was  a  simple-minded  yokel. 

Down  in  my  banking-office  the  people  in  my  em- 
ploy obeyed  me  with  a  jump,  and  received  the  "sack" 

54 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

or  the  "hook" — whichever  is  the  correct  technical 
substantive — for  the  slightest  incivility  or  carelessness. 
In  my  equally  expensive  and  no  less  important  estab- 
lishment up-town  my  men  servants  not  infrequently 
indicated  by  the  frigidity  of  their  demeanor  what  they 
thought  of  me  and  my  suggestions — I  cannot  refer  to 
my  remarks  as  orders — as  to  how  they  should  spend 
their  time. 

They  had  every  other  afternoon  and  evening  out; 
they  arrived  at  the  house  in  the  morning  just  in  time 
to  officiate  at  breakfast  at  nine  o'clock;  and  their  chief 
function  seemed  to  be  to  stand  in  the  front  hall  and 
hand  me  my  hat  and  stick,  after  which  they  probably 
dawdled  away  the  morning  smoking  in  the  pantry, 
reading  the  magazines,  or  glancing  through  Burke's 
"Peerage." 

The  female  domestics,  though  better  workers,  were 
no  less  exacting  than  the  men  in  regard  to  tune  off. 
When,  on  the  occasion  of  OUT  annual  migration  to 
Newport,  they  left  the  house  in  a  body  to  go  to  the 
train,  their  numbers  suggested  a  parade  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  Revolution.  A  silent  and  ominous 
antagonism  characterized  their  deportment. 

No  one  of  my  family  ever  entered  the  kitchen  or 
exercised  any  authority  there.  The  cook  ordered  all 
the  meals.  We  did  not  give  orders  to  her.  We  as- 
sumed a  placating  attitude,  fearful,  as  it  were,  lest  we 
might  be  discharged  if  we  incurred  her  displeasure. 

55 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

As  a  man  of  financial  affairs  I  was  regarded  as  a  suc- 
cess; as  the  head  of  a  domestic  household  I  was  worse 
than  a  joke.  And  my  wife,  considering  that  the  home 
is  supposed  to  be  woman's  sphere,  was  as  bad  as  or 
even  worse  than  I  was. 

Our  house  was  run  independently  of  us,  not  by  us 
— and  hardly  for  us.  We  were  ignoramuses,  totally 
unfit  to  assume  the  management  of  our  own  domestic 
economy,  just  as  I  had  shown  myself  to  be  with  re- 
gard to  the  furnace.  Yet  I  had  mastered  it;  and, 
if  I  had,  there  was  hope  that  it  might  not  be  too  late 
for  us  to  assume  the  responsibilities  of  ordering  our 
own  meals  and  handling  our  own  affairs. 

Since  the  day  I  wrestled  with  that  furnace  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  the  government  to  which  I 
owed  my  allegiance  was  really  no  better  prepared  to 
cope  with  the  practical  possibilities  involved  in  its 
being  one  of  the  family  of  nations  than  I  was  as  a 
householder.  If  at  any  time  a  burglar  had  seen  fit  to 
enter  my  home  he  could  have  held  me  up  at  the  point 
of  his  gun  and  relieved  me  of  my  valuables  without 
the  possibility  of  resistance.  I  knew  that  New  York 
had  its  quota  of  burglars,  but  I  had  no  burglar-alarm, 
no  firearms,  and  no  watchman.  If  the  burglar  had 
come,  and  I  had  survived  his  visit,  next  day  I  should 
have  hired  a  private  patrolman  and  purchased  a  re- 
volver; but  the  burglar  would  have  had  things  all 
his  own  way  for  the  time  being.  Like  myself,  Uncle 

56 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

Sam  had  been  quite  content  to  be  a  good  business 
man,  and  in  his  family  life  had  been  entirely  too 
easy-going. 

My  gymnastics  in  the  cellar  necessitated  changing 
my  clothes  and  a  thorough  washing  up;  so  it  was 
nearly  lunch-time  before  I  could  send  for  Rene.  For 
eight  years  he  had  been  a  family  institution.  He  had 
taken  Margery  to  school  in  the  morning  and  returned 
for  her  at  one;  had  borne  me  down-town  to  my  office 
at  nine-thirty  and  called  for  me  at  five;  had  carried 
Helen  out  to  luncheon  and  on  her  constant  shopping 
excursions;  and  in  the  evening  had  transported  us  to 
the  theatre,  to  the  opera,  or  to  dinner.  The  little  car 
was  kept  rolling  all  the  time.  None  of  us  set  foot  on 
the  asphalt  if  we  could  help  it,  and  meantime  we  had 
all  gained  substantially  in  weight — particularly  my 
wife. 

"Ren6,"  I  said  apologetically,  "I  have  some  bad 
news  for  you.  Mrs.  Stanton  and  I  have  decided  that 
we  ought  not  to  keep  the  motor  this  winter.  We  have 
got  to  make  some  sacrifices,  and  we  feel  that  the  car 
is  such  an  expense  we  shall  have  to  let  you  go." 

I  was  very  sorry  to  lose  our  lame  chauffeur.  We 
were  all  devoted  to  him,  and  for  that  reason  had  found 
him  another  place  and  paid  him  half-wages  during 
our  absence.  But  though  I  knew  my  friend,  by 
whom  he  had  been  employed,  to  be  anxious  to  retain 
his  services,  I  was  afraid  Rene  would  show  some 

57 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

resentment.  He  merely  smiled  regretfully  and 
touched  his  cap,  however. 

"I  understand,  m'sieur,"  he  answered  in  a  sym- 
pathetic tone.  "I  am  sorry,  of  course.  But  when  all 
the  world  has  gone  mad,  que  voulez-vousf  We  must  all 
suffer — eh?  We  must  all  make  our  little  sacrifices. 
And,  vraiment,  m'sieur,  you  do  not  need  a  car  in  the 
city.  There  are  very  many  taxis.  By  and  by,  when 
the  war  is  over,  I  shall  come  back  to  m'sieur — per- 
haps." 

"I  hope  so,  Rene,"  I  replied,  touched  by  his  man- 
ner. "But  none  of  us  can  tell.  We  may  never  have 
our  car  again.  Here  is  the  check  for  your  half- wages." 

I  held  out  the  slip  of  paper  to  him,  but  he  hesitated. 

"Mm,  non,  m'sieur!"  he  exclaimed  in  half  protest. 
"How  can  I  take  the  money  when  I  come  not  back  to 
you  ?  It  was  to  be  a — what  do  you  say  ? — a  bonus,  if 
I  returned.  And  now  I  do  not  return.  "  Non,  m'sieur, 
I  cannot  take  it." 

"But,  Rene,"  I  insisted — "how  ridiculous!  It  was 
a  contract.  The  money  is  yours.  I  have  no  right  to 
it.  I  shall  be  very  much  displeased  if  you  do  not 
take  it.  So  will  madame.  I  mean  it." 

Ren6  fingered  his  mustache. 

"It  is  very  kind  of  you,  m'sieur,"  he  said  simpty, 
"but  if  I  take  it  it  will  be  only  because  of  my  coun- 
try. Each  month  I  send  all  but  a  few  dollars  back  to 
France — all  I  can  spare.  Keep  half,  then,  m'sieur, 

58 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

and  buy  for  me  a  few  of  those  bonds  of  liberty — 
that  bind  all  the  Allies  together.  Yes,  m'sieur,  you 
shall  invest  for  me  here  half  of  this  money,  and  half  I 
shall  send  to  France." 

"You  are  a  good  fellow,  Rene !"  I  cried,  holding  out 
my  hand.  "Very  well;  I  will  do  as  you  say.  But 
don't  forget  us !  Some  time,  when  you  are  not  busy, 
come  round  and  let  us  know  how  you  are  getting  on." 

I  stood  on  the  front  steps  and  watched  him,  through 
the  slight  mist  in  my  eyes,  limping  down  the  street 
until  he  turned  the  corner  in  the  direction  of  Third 
Avenue.  Surely  the  war  had  done  something  for 
Rene — something  for  all  of  us  I 

In  the  hall  I  met  Margery,  her  hair  afly,  her  hands 
black  with  dust,  and  an  expression  of  horror,  mingled 
with  amusement,  upon  her  face. 

"Dad,"  she  announced,  "there's  hardly  a  piece  of 
china  that  isn't  nicked  I  And  as  for  the  glass,  I  can't 
seem  to  find  more  than  a  few  odd  pieces  of  each  kind. 
It  was  a  new  set  last  year  I" 

"Never  mind,"  I  answered,  slipping  my  arm  through 
hers.  "There'll  be  all  we  shall  need.  I  guess  we  won't 
do  much  entertaining  this  year.  I  like  variety,  any- 
how. What  are  we  going  to  have  for  lunch?" 

"Canned  ox-tail  soup,"  she  laughed.  "Scrambled 
eggs  and  grapes.  What's  the  matter  with  thatl" 

"Nothing,"  I  agreed.  "And  the  sooner  I  get  at  it 
the  better  satisfied  I  shall  be." 

59 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"You  know,  this  picnicking  is  rather  jolly,"  con- 
tinued my  erstwhile  dainty  daughter.  "It's  lots  of 
fun  doing  things  oneself.  .  .  .  Hello!  There's 
mother!" 

She  sprang  to  the  front  door  and  swept  it  open  with 
a  courtesy. 

"Come  right  in,  mum !"  she  mimicked.  "Shure  an' 
the  missis'll  be  tickled  to  death  to  see  yez !  And  lunch 
is  after  being  ready  on  the  table  this  quarter  of  an 
hour!" 

"Well,"  remarked  Helen  as,  a  few  moments  later, 
we  drew  round  the  board  presided  over  by  Mrs. 
Gavin,  "I've  got  a  cook!" 

"How  much  a  month?"  I  inquired. 

"Forty  dollars,"  she  answered  triumphantly.  "And 
we  used  to  pay  Julia  seventy-five!  Besides,  this  one 
will  come  without  a  kitchen-maid,  and  that  means  a 
saving  of  thirty-five  dollars  a  month  more ! " 

"Great  business!  What  other  victories  have  you 
achieved?" 

"A  parlor-maid,  a  laundress,  and  a  chambermaid — 
for  thirty  dollars  a  month  each." 

"Instead  of--" 

"A  butler  at  eighty,  a  second  man  at  sixty,  two 
laundresses  at  forty,  a  parlor-maid,  two  lady's-maids, 
and  two  chambermaids  at  thirty-five  each." 

"Helen!"  I  stammered,  aghast.  "Do  you  seri- 
60 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

ously  mean  to  tell  me  that  you  can  run  the  house  with 
four  servants  instead  of  eleven  ?  " 

"I  do !  Of  course  we'll  have  to  close  up  one  of  the 
bedroom  floors  entirely,  and  two  of  the  three  sitting- 
rooms.  I  may  even  leave  the  furniture  covers  on  in 
some  places.  You  won't  mind,  will  you?  It  will  cut 
the  house  almost  in  half.  Four  servants  can  handle  it 
easily. 

"Of  course  I  don't  mean  to  claim  that  your  bells 
will  be  answered  so  quickly,  or  that  you'll  get  French 
cooking,  or  that  I  won't  have  to  keep  you  waiting 
sometimes  when  you  want  me  to  go  out  with  you  in 
the  evening — I  shan't  have  any  personal  maid,  you 
know;  but  think  of  the  saving — a  hundred  and  thirty 
dollars  a  month  as  against  five  hundred  and  fivel" 

"And  the  food  they  would  have  eaten!"  I  added 
with  a  glow  of  satisfaction.  ^  "  Heaven  knows  what 
quantities ! " 

"That  is  another  matter,"  remarked  my  wife 
judicially — "one  I  shall  have  to  look  into.  But  if  I 
can  reduce  my  servants'  pay-roll  by  three  hundred  and 
seventy-five  dollars — over  70  per  cent — I  ought  to  be 
able  to  do  something  with  the  butcher's  and  grocer's 
bills." 

"  'Who  can  find  a  virtuous  woman?'"  I  murmured 
admiringly,  "  'for  her  price  is  far  above  rubies.' ' 

My  wife  threw  me  a  grateful  smile. 

"We  shall  probably  have  our  ups  and  downs,"  she 
61 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

admitted.  "Mrs.  Russell  has  been  having  a  terrible 
time.  You  see,  she  kept  her  whole  staff  of  domestics 
and  cut  down  the  kitchen-table  to  almost  nothing. 
She  insisted  that  it  was  too  much  trouble  to  try  to  get 
new  servants.  And  this  morning,  when  the  butler 
gave  notice  and  so  did  the  cook,  she  was  so  paralyzed 
with  fright  that  she  told  them  to  go  ahead  just  as  they 
had  before." 

"That's  a  fine  way  to  get  behind  the  administra- 
tion!" I  retorted  in  disgust.  "What  do  you  hear  of 
other  people?" 

"A  great  many  are  cutting  down  or  living  in  hotels. 
The  employment  offices  are  full  of  domestics  looking 
for  places — even  men.  I  didn't  have  any  trouble. 
Our  chief  difficulty  is  going  to  be  about  the  supply 
bills John,  you  look  tired !  What's  the  matter  ?  " 

"Oh,  nothing,"  I  evaded  her.  " It's  all  right.  Feel- 
ing our  journey  a  little,  I  guess.  Then  I  have  had  my 
talk  with  Rene — and  I  built  a  fire  in  the  furnace." 

'Tin  so  glad  you  did,"  she  replied.  "The  house 
was  too  cold." 

"So  am  I,"  I  muttered,  but  for  a  different  reason. 

When  the  new  servants,  in  due  course,  made  their 
appearance  I  was  unable  to  observe  any  difference  be- 
tween them  and  the  old.  It  is  quite  true  that  it  took 
our  one  maid  somewhat  longer  to  serve  dinner  than  it 
had  our  butler  and  second  man;  but  personally  I  felt 

62 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

much  more  at  ease  than  when  every  mouthful  I  ate 
was  being  watched  and  criticised  by  the  imposing 
gentlemen  who  had  hitherto  condescended  to  pass  me 
my  food  in  return  for  their  board  and  lodging,  in  ad- 
dition to  a  monetary  consideration  almost  as  large  as 
had  been  my  paternal  grandfather's  salary  as  a  clergy- 
man. 

Moreover,  as  the  days  passed  I  did  not  notice  that 
the  meals  were  any  less  abundant  or  appetizing  than 
before.  Like  most  men,  I  cared  nothing  for  variety. 
What  I  wanted  was  solid  food,  well  cooked.  And  this 
I  had  in  plenty;  in  fact,  after  the  lapse  of  a  week  I 
asked  Helen  whether  she  was  not  rather  extravagant 
in  her  providing. 

Seriously,  I  had  not  noticed  any  particular  change 
in  our  manner  of  living,  except  a  few  trifles,  such  as 
that  after  the  soup  we  now  had  fish  or  meat,  salad  or 
dessert,  instead  of  all  four;  that  when  we  had  chops 
they  did  not  wear  pantalets;  and  that  our  desserts 
lacked  the  architectural  magnificence  and  Cinque- 
cento  ornamentation  that  had  previously  characterized 
them. 

"Extravagant?"  answered  Helen,  opening  a  drawer 
and  handing  me  a  little  pile  of  slips.  "Perhaps  I'll 
get  the  ordering  down  finer  as  we  go  along.  As  it  is, 
we  are  living  on  about  a  third  of  what  we  used  to 
spend.  Most  of  it  went  on  the  kitchen-table;  but 
there  was  a  tremendous  waste  on  our  own.  I  suppose 

63 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

you've  noticed  that  we  don't  have  very  much  left 
over  when  we  get  through?  No?  Well,  Julia's  idea 
— the  idea  of  most  cooks  in  big  houses,  I  guess — was 
that  the  serving  of  a  luncheon  or  dinner  was  an  aes- 
thetic affair.  How  the  table  looked  was  just  as  im- 
portant as  how  the  food  tasted. 

"For  instance,  she  always  served  a  complete  circle 
of  lamb  chops,  no  matter  how  many  of  us  were  going 
to  eat  them;  and  the  roast  beef  or  saddle  of  lamb  had 
to  be  big  enough  to  look  well  on  the  dish.  Quantity 
was  an  end  in  itself;  it  was  part  of  a  properly  ordered 
meal.  And  we  always  had  meat  twice  a  day  and 
fancy  fruits  from  the  grocer.  Haven't  you  missed 
them?" 

"Missed  what?"  I  asked. 

"The  meat  and  fruit." 

"Haven't  we  been  having  them  right  along?" 

Helen  could  not  repress  a  smile. 

"What  is  the  use  of  keeping  house  for  a  man,  any- 
way," she  exclaimed  with  assumed  peevishness,  "when 
he  doesn't  care  two  cents  whether  the  table  is  pretty 
or  not,  or  whether  he  eats  steak  or  baked  beans ! " 

"But  I'm  crazy  about  beans!"  I  replied. 

"Then  you  ought  to  be  perfectly  satisfied,"  she 
laughed.  "You've  had  them  three  times  this 
week!" 

"  I  am,"  I  answered.    "  I  don't  want  anything  better. 

And  that  fillet  of  sole  you  gave  me  last  night " 

64 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

"Flounder,  at  sixteen  cents  a  pound!"  she  inter- 
rupted. 

"But,  Helen,"  I  protested  with  sincere  admiration, 
"how  did  you  know  how  to  do  it?  You  who've  al- 
ways been  used  to  the  best  of  everything  and  have 
hated  to  have  anything  to  do  with  servants,  or  even 
to  go  into  the  kitchen!" 

She  looked  at  me  quizzically. 

"John,"  she  said,  "you  don't  think  I'm  an  abso- 
lute fool,  do  you?  Don't  you  suppose  that  I — and 
all  rich  women — have  always  known  that  we  did  not 
eat  simply  hi  order  to  satisfy  our  hunger  and  keep 
ourselves  strong  and  well — but  for  appearances?  It 
didn't  take  any  brains  to  realize  that.  The  food 
served  in  the  dining-room  has  always  had  a  decorative 
quality — just  like  the  linen  and  silver  and  china.  And 
there  had  to  be  a  certain  number  of  courses.  Why, 
I  never  used  to  sit  down  to  lunch,  even  by  myself, 
without  having  some  sort  of  hors  d'oeuvre,  soup,  an 
entree,  salad,  and  dessert!  You  don't  imagine  I 
thought  I  needed  them,  do  you?  Now  tell  me:  What 
do  you  have  for  lunch  down-town?" 

"A  slice  of  roast  beef  and  a  cup  of  coffee." 

"Exactly !"  she  retorted.  "You  eat  what  you  need 
to  satisfy  your  appetite,  and  no  more.  Well,  we 
women  used  to  eat  the  kind  of  food  a  seventy-five-dol- 
lar cook  thought  she  ought  to  prepare  and  an  eighty- 
dollar  butler  would  be  willing  to  serve  without  losing 

65 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

his  self-respect.  Can  you  see  old  Chatterton  serving 
a  slice  of  roast  beef  and  a  cup  of  coffee?" 

I  couldn't,  by  any  stretch  of  my  imagination. 

"No/'  I  admitted;  "nor  can  I  imagine  him  eating 
a  lunch  of  just  roast  beef  and  coffee!  I  am  sure  he 
never  condescended  to  touch  anything  but  pate  de 
foie  gras  and  vintage  champagne." 

"  Pretty  near  it !  I've  been  studying  our  old  market- 
books.  You  probably  won't  believe  it,  but  in  one 
month  last  year  we  ate  in  this  house  over  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  of  roast  beef  and  a  hundred  dollars' 
worth  of  fruit  1" 

"You  say  we  ate  it?" 

"Why,  yes;  I  suppose  we  must  have,"  she  an- 
swered doubtfully. 

"Helen,"  I  adjured  her,  "don't  deceive  yourself! 
We  didn't  eat  it;  we  were  just  charged  for  it!" 

Down  at  the  office  I  timidly  recounted  to  my  part- 
ner Lord  some  of  the  high  lights  of  our  recent  do- 
mestic revolution.  He  listened  with  only  polite  in- 
terest, intimating  that  I  was  way  behind  the  times. 
It  appeared  that  most  people  of  our  means  had  also 
awakened  to  the  absurdity  or  at  least  the  high  cost  of 
table-dressing. 

"Don't  talk  to  me  about  it,  old  man,"  he  begged. 
"Honestly,  it  makes  me  ill  I  I've  just  figured  out 
that  this  blooming  hidebound  conventionality  about 

66 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

eating  has  cost  me  over  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  the 
last  ten  years.    How  I  wish  I  had  it  now  I" 

That  is  what  the  first  jar  of  the  present  earthquake 
did  to  the  Stanton  menage,  to  my  partner,  and  to  num- 
bers of  my  friends.  It  has  jarred  us  harder  than  some 
other  people,  because  it  has  actually  reduced  our  in- 
comes. We  have  been  forced  to  cut  down.  It  is  far 
less  to  our  credit  than  to  that  of  those  who  have  done 
so  voluntarily.  But,  whatever  the  reason,  it  is  a 
good  thing.  Waste  in  food  is  the  most  wasteful  of  all 
waste,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  constant — three  tunes 
a  day,  year  in  and  year  out. 

Even  before  the  present  campaign  for  domestic 
economy  instituted  by  the  Food  Administration,  tre- 
mendous saving  had  been  going  on  as  far  back  as  1915- 
1916.  I  am  credibly  informed  that  last  winter  New 
York  City's  refuse  had  been  reduced  by  thirty-three  per 
cent,  and  that  the  official  scavengers  found  they  could 
get  through  their  work  two  hours  earlier  each  day! 
Hotels  and  hospitals  that  had  paid  considerable  sums 
to  have  their  swill  taken  away  found  it  a  substantial 
source  of  income.  The  unseparated  fats  had  lined 
the  garbage-pail  with  gold  I 

The  war  has  set  everybody  thinking  about  things 
that  the  European  studied  and  systematized,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  centuries  past.  The  Frenchman,  the 
Italian,  the  German,  and  the  Englishman  long  ago 

67 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

discovered  that  for  the  worker  it  is,  in  general,  easier 
to  save  than  to  increase  one's  earning  capacity  and 
that  a  careful  adjustment  of  expenditure  to  needs  in 
daily  life  would,  in  due  time,  bring  comfort  if  not 
wealth.  I  realized,  at  last,  the  reason  why  thrift 
on  the  part  of  the  mistress  of  the  household  is  lauded 
throughout  the  pages  of  Holy  Writ.  I  suppose  the 
respect  paid  to  the  wealthy  even  in  recent  times  was 
due  to  the  belief  that  riches  could  only  be  attained 
by  industry  and  thrift,  and  that  therefore  the  rich 
man  was  a  virtuous  citizen  and  one  to  be  proud  of. 
Even  if  we  won't  admit  it,  we  still  have  something 
of  the  same  feeling — always,  of  course,  conceding  that 
millionaires,  as  a  class,  are  a  parcel  of  crooks. 

Crooked  or  not,  however,  we  have  always  insisted 
that  the  rich  man  should  spend  his  money  freely — 
perhaps  in  order  that  we  might  get  some  of  it.  The 
"tightwad"  was  and  is  our  national  detestation.  On 
the  stage  the  close-lipped  stingy  financier  always 
went  to  jail,  and  the  lavish,  roistering  young  spend- 
thrift was  played  up  as  a  hero.  It  was  considered 
almost  a  duty  for  the  rich  to  be  wasteful.  Lavishness 
was  felt  to  indicate  a  spiritual  superiority  to  lucre. 

One  may  be  inclined  to  doubt  whether  the  million- 
aire who  floods  the  Tenderloin  with  champagne  shows 
as  much  contempt  for  his  money  as  he  does  a  soulful 
appreciation  of  what  it  can  buy.  One  is  tempted  into 
somewhat  foggy  metaphysics  in  pursuit  of  the  allur- 

68 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

ing  desire  to  give  the  devil  his  due  in  this  respect. 
But,  anyhow,  we  all  do  hate  a  mean  man. 

Well,  the  war  has  made  us  discriminate  between 
meanness  and  thrift.  Thrift  is  the  prevention  of 
waste;  meanness  is  saving  for  oneself  alone.  But  war 
is  waste  "elevated  into  a  religion."  They  say  at  the 
Rockefeller  Institute  that  the  cost  of  the  present  war 
for  one  week  would  stamp  out  tuberculosis  all  over  the 
world  forever  1 

All  of  us  are  now  educated  to  the  tremendous  re- 
sults that  can  be  effected  by  slight  economies  on  the 
part  of  the  individuals  composing  a  nation  of  a  hun- 
dred million  people.  Thanks  to  Mr.  Hoover,  we  dream 
dreams  and  see  visions — of  mountains  of  sugar  and 
rivers  of  milk — all  created  by  our  mere  abstinence 
from  one  cup  of  tea  or  coffee  a  week.  After  all,  it 
doesn't  require  a  great  deal  of  imagination.  Multiply 
almost  anything  by  one  hundred  million  and  we  are 
quite  naturally  left  gasping. 

One  hundred  million  loaves  of  bread  takes,  in  the 
making,  a  powerful  lot  of  flour — which  might  be  sent 
to  the  Allies.  The  war  has  jarred  that  into  the  heads 
of  a  lot  of  good  people  who  never  thought  of  it  before. 
More  than  that,  it  has  brought  home  to  everybody  a 
startling  conception  of  the  tremendous  latent  power 
for  saving — which,  after  all,  is  the  equivalent  of  pro- 
duction— possessed  by  the  American  people.  And, 
because  it  is  so  easy  to  accomplish  a  gigantic  result  by 

69 


THE  EARTHQUAKE      ^ 

the  simplest  means,  everybody  ought  to  start  In,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  help. 

As  a  result  thrift  is  going  to  be  elevated  to  its  an- 
cient niche  among  the  cardinal  American  virtues.  Of 
course  with  some  this  will  be  due  to  mere  self-interest. 
When  eggs-  are  too  high  people  go  without  omelets. 
But  principally  it  will  be  due  to  the  nation-wide 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  waste  is  wrong— and  under 
present  circumstances  a  crime ! 

The  amount  of  stale  bread  thrown  away  daily  in 
New  York  City  reached  into  the  tons.  The  only 
reason  for  this  was  that  more  bread  was  baked  than 
was  needed.  So  it  was  with  everything  that  was 
served  by  the  piece.  The  cook  always  sent  up  at 
least  one  extra  chop — for  looks.  If  she  ordered  ten 
pounds  of  roast,  the  butcher — presuming  upon  her 
good  nature  or  relying  upon  her  connivance — sent  her 
twelve  and  a  half  or  thirteen.  It  was  cut  in  the 
kitchen  and  served  in  the  dining-room.  People  helped 
themselves  to  two  slices  because  one  slice  didn't  seem 
enough,  though  two  were  obviously  too  much.  Pie 
was  cut  into  huge  segments  in  the  pantry  before  it 
was  passed.  Housewives  habitually  served  twice  as 
much  of  everything  as  was  necessary  in  order  to  earn 
the  proud  title  of  "liberal  providers."  Puddings, 
more  than  half  the  time,  were  sent  back  to  the 
kitchen  only  partly  consumed. 

Nothing  in  metropolitan  centres  ever  reappeared 
70 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

upon  the  dining-room  table,  once  it  had  been  taken 
away.  I  speak,  of  course,  of  establishments  where  a 
number  of  servants  are  employed.  These  servants 
ate  and  still  eat  five  or  six  meals  a  day,  without  any 
restraint  upon  their  power  of  consumption.  They  be- 
gan with  a  heavy  breakfast,  between  seven  and  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  consisting  of  tea  and  coffee, 
hot  bread,  eggs,  bacon,  oatmeal,  jam,  and  fruit.  At 
ten  or  half  past  they  had  and  have  a  second  or  sup- 
plementary breakfast  of  bread,  milk,  coffee,  or  tea — 
"Just  a  bite,  you  know,  madam !" 

Dinner  at  twelve  sees  the  kitchen-table  groaning 
under  the  burden  of  the  chief  or  third  meal  of  the 
day — soup,  roast  meat  or  fish,  vegetables,  tea,  coffee, 
and  milk,  cake,  pie,  pudding,  jam,  preserves,  fruit. 
Along  about  two-thirty  the  famished  domestic  is 
moved  to  avert  starvation  by  a  fourth  resort  to  the 
larder,  and  a  secondary  luncheon  of  tea,  coffee,  milk, 
lemonade,  cake,  the  remains  of  the  pie  and  the  fruit, 
and  any  unconsidered  trifles  from  up-stairs  that 
may  have  been  salvaged  by  the  butler  or  parlor- 
maid. 

Thus  they  are  enabled  to  endure  the  pangs  of 
hunger  until  five  o'clock,  when  the  regular  supper  is 
served,  followed  by  another — or  sixth — meal  at  nine 
or  ten  o'clock,  just  before  the  friends  go  home,  con- 
sisting of  everything  that  is  left  in  the  house  which 
they  have  previously  overlooked. 

71 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

To  meet  these  useless  and  extravagant  demands, 
cooks  are  accustomed  to  order  huge  quantities  of  raw 
and  canned  foods,  which,  in  addition  to  being  a  temp- 
tation to  waste,  constitute  an  equally  strong  one  to 
dishonesty  upon  the  part  of  those  employees  who, 
though  they  share  in  the  general  gastronomical  priv- 
ileges below  stairs,  live  out  and  have  others  less  for- 
tunate dependent  upon  them  at  home. 

How  well  I  remember  discovering  in  our  area  our 
cook's  aunt — a  massive  lady  from  Galway — with  a 
basket  hardly  concealed  beneath  her  shawl,  in  which 
were  a  fourteen-pound  roast,  a  milk-fed  Philadelphia 
capon,  several  packages  of  tea,  sugar,  and  coffee, 
various  jars  of  preserves  and  cans  of  table  delicacies, 
and  a  handful  of  my  best  cigars!  But  that  was 
long  ago. 

The  war  has  brought  up  mistress  and  servant  alike 
with  a  jerk.  My  sober  guess  is  that,  in  the  section  of 
New  York  City  between  Fifty-ninth  and  Ninetieth 
Streets  and  Fifth  and  Madison  Avenues  not  fifty  per 
cent  of  the  mistresses  of  households  knew  what  their 
servants  had  for  dinner,  or  how  many  persons  sat  down 
to  table  in  the  servants'  dining-hall — including  fol- 
lowers, brothers,  sisters,  aunts,  and  cousins  just  over 
or  temporarily  out  of  a  job;  how  many  times  a  week 
meat  was  served  in  the  kitchen;  what  proportion  the 
bills  for  the  maintenance  of  the  help  bore  to  the 
total  cost  of  keeping  up  the  establishment;  or  whether 

72 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

the  price  of  flour  was  five  dollars  or  twenty  dollars  a 
barrel.  Well,  they  know  now — some  of  them ! 

Ladies  who  have  always  assumed  that  it  would  be 
indelicate  to  refer  to  a  pot-roast  or  a  rump-steak  now 
daily  visit  their  ice-boxes  and  direct  the  activities  of 
their  cooks.  The  regime  of  the  Queen  of  the  Kitchen 
is  over,  unless  she  is  one  of  Mr.  Hoover's  anointed. 
It  is  a  paradox  of  interest  that  in  some  households 
employing  a  large  number  of  servants,  where  from 
five  hundred  to  one  thousand  dollars  a  month  is  spent 
for  food  supplies  alone,  the  monthly  budget  has 
grown  steadily  less,  with  the  advance  in  prices,  since 
our  entry  into  the  war. 

The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Where  heretofore 
there  was  no  restraint  upon  the  cooks,  now,  for  the 
first  time,  some  attention  at  least  is  being  paid  to  the 
quantity  of  supplies  ordered,  their  quality  and  cost, 
and  the  use  to  which  the  remnants  of  food  left  over 
from  each  meal  are  put.  One  lady  tells  me  that  the 
moral  effect  of  her  nodding  to  the  cook  in  the  morning 
is  enough  to  save  her  about  ten  dollars  a  day.  If  it 
saves  ten  dollars  in  money,  what  must  that  nod  save 
toward  the  flour  and  sugar  we  must  send  to  starving 
France  and  Belgium? 

This  is  highly  encouraging  as  far  as  it  goes;  but,  so 
far  as  I  have  observed,  only  a  small  minority  of  peo- 
ple of  my  acquaintance — unless  their  incomes  have 
been  reduced — have  materially  cut  down  their  scale  of 

73 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

living.  Those  who,  like  myself,  have  been  compelled 
to  do  so  have  bowed  to  necessity;  but  I  know  of  but 
few  of  my  friends  who  are  reorganizing  their  house- 
holds and  enforcing  genuine  domestic  economies  in 
order  to  buy  more  Liberty  Bonds  or  give  the  money 
thus  saved  to  war  relief. 

They  are,  no  doubt,  buying  Liberty  Bonds  and  giv- 
ing generously  to  war  charities,  but  they  have  not 
reached  the  state  of  mind  in  which  they  feel  called 
upon  to  endure  discomfort,  or  even  to  inconvenience 
themselves  in  order  to  furnish  additional  money  for 
the  support  of  the  government  or  for  relief-work. 

We  saw  the  same  phenomenon  in  tunes  of  peace. 
Rich  women  who  believed  that  Christ  measured  the 
value  of  giving  by  the  sacrifice  involved,  and  taught 
that  to  save  one's  soul  it  might,  in  some  instances  at 
least,  be  well  to  sell  everything  one  had  and  give  the 
proceeds  to  the  poor,  were  entirely  satisfied  to  con- 
tinue to  roll  round  in  their  limousines,  though  they 
could  have  disposed  of  them  at  a  reasonable  price  and 
saved  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  tubercular  children  with 
the  money. 

Most  of  the  people  I  know  are  sincerely  trying  to 
follow  out  the  directions  of  the  Food  Administration 
and  to  conserve  those  special  necessaries  that  are  so 
vital  to  our  allies  and  to  our  own  fighting  force.  Apart 
from  that,  I  don't  think  they  have  really  done  very 
much.  It  is  too  often  a  hard  and  disagreeable  job, 

74 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

involving  usually  a  state  of  belligerency,  or  at  least 
armed  neutrality,  with  the  domestics,  j 

There  is  another  aspect  of  affairs  ijpon  which  the 
lady  of  fashion  might  profitably  consult  her  pet  clair- 
voyant: If  we  are  forced  to  send  a  couple  of  million 
men  to  France  and  Italy  in  order  to  pull  the  fangs  of 
Hindenbtirg  and  Ludendorff,  she  will  in  time  be  apt  to 
find  herself  not  only  without  a  chauffeur,  butler,  or 
second  man,  but  cookless  and  maidless  as  well.  With 
her  agreeable  bank  balance  she  may  be  willing  to 
continue  to  pay  the  upward-leaping  wages  of  the 
leisure  class  who  wait  on  us;  but  not  so  the  majority 
of  employers.  The  servants  will  seek  other  work. 

Wages  of  domestics  generally  have  gone  up  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  per  cent  since  the  war  began.  Con- 
sidering that  they  receive  their  board  and  lodging, 
which  have  gone  up  about  fifty  per  cent  in  the  same 
period,  a  female  domestic  servant  is  costing  her  mis- 
tress not  far  from  thirty-five  per  cent  more  than  a 
year  or  so  ago.  A  twenty-five-dollar  maid  now  asks 
thirty-five,  and  her  board  costs  about  ten  dollars  a 
month  more  than  it  did. 

But  it  will  not  eventually,  I  feel  sure,  be  so  much 
a  question  of  wages;  the  difficulty  will  be  to  get 
servants  at  all.  The  scarcity  of  labor  will  not  stop 
when  it  reaches  Fifth  Avenue.  I  should  not  be  at 
all  surprised,  if  the  war  continues  another  two  years, 
to  find  practically  every  mistress  of  a  household  with 

75 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

her  daughters  doing  their  share  of  the  housework,  as 
a  matter  of  course — just  as  they  are  doing  in  England. 

And  that  is  exactly  what  Helen  and  Margery  are 
doing  now.  If  the  wives  of  my  friends  are  not  will- 
ing to  do  this — why,  they  had  better  look  round  for 
a  nice,  dry,  airy  cave  in  a  sunny  climate  where  they 
can  sleep  on  the  ground,  live  on  yams  and  breadfruit 
and  bathe — if  they  still  find  bathing  necessary  and 
agreeable — in  the  nearest  brook. 

But  running  the  house  is  a  woman's  job,  let  who  will 
deny  it.  Mrs.  Emily  James  Putnam,  in  "The  Lady/' 
quotes  the  account  Ischomachos  gave  to  Socrates  of 
how  he  started  his  wife  in  the  right  direction  after  he 
had  married  her.  Isch  was  a  young  Athenian  swell  of 
about  the  same  social  status  as  our  friend  Highbilt, 
here  in  New  York. 

"First,"  said  he,  "we  put  together  everything  that 
had  to  do  with  the  sacrifices.  Then  we  grouped  the 
maids'  best  clothes,  the  men's  best  clothes  and  their 
soldier  outfits,  the  maids'  bedding,  the  men's  bedding, 
the  maids'  shoes  and  the  men's  shoes.  We  put  weap- 
ons in  one  group  and  classified  under  different  heads 
the  tools  for  wool-working,  baking,  cooking,  care  of 
the  bath  and  of  the  table,  and  so  on.  Then  we  made 
a  cross-classification  of  things  used  every  day  and 
things  used  on  holidays  only.  Next  we  set  aside  from 
the  stores  sufficient  provisions  for  a  month,  and  also 
what  we  calculated  would  last  a  year.  That  is  the 

76 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

only  way  to  keep  your  supplies  from  running  out  be- 
fore you  know  it. 

"After  that  we  put  everything  in  its  appropriate 
place,  summoned  the  servants,  explained  our  system 
to  them,  and  made  each  one  responsible  for  the  safety 
of  each  article  needed  in  his  daily  work,  and  for  res- 
toration, after  use,  to  its  proper  place.  ...  I  told  my 
wife  that  good  laws  will  not  keep  a  state  in  order  un- 
less they  are  enforced,  and  that  she,  as  the  chief  exec- 
utive officer  under  our  constitution,  must  contrive  by 
rewards  and  punishments  that  law  should  prevail  in 
our  house. 

"By  way  of  apology  for  laying  upon  her  so  many 
troublesome  duties,  I  bade  her  observe  that  we  can- 
not reasonably  expect  servants  spontaneously  to  be 
careful  of  the  master's  goods,  since  they  have  no  in- 
terest in  being  so;  the  owner  is  the  one  who  must 
take  trouble  to  preserve  his  property.  ...  I  advised 
her  to  look  on  at  the  bread-making  and  stand  by  while 
the  housekeeper  dealt  out  the  supplies,  and  to  go 
about  inspecting  everything.  Thus  she  could  practise 
her  profession  and  take  a  walk  at  the  same  time.  I 
added  that  excellent  exercise  could  be  had  by  making 
beds  and  kneading  dough." 

Good  sense,  that !  The  newly  wedded  Mrs.  Ischo- 
machos  could  teach  a  good  deal  to  some  of  our  war 
brides.  Modern  New  York  can  learn  something  from 
ancient  Athens.  But  our  women  will  come  up  to 

77 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

the  domestic  scratch  later  on,  even  if  they  have  not 
done  so  already.  Education  is  slow,  particularly  in 
the  case  of  the  middle-aged — and  resurfacing  one's 
gastro-intestinal  tract  is  a  hazardous  process. 

However,  it  is  doing  Helen  and  Margery  and  me  a 
great  deal  of  good.  My  wife  looks  younger  than  she 
has  for  years,  because  she  eats  only  what  she  needs  to 
eat  and  walks  instead  of  riding  in  a  motor.  Both 
she  and  Margery  have  gained  alertness  in  body  and 
mind.  They  have  tackled  their  job  gallantly  and 
have  never  even  complained;  but  I  know  that  at 
times  it  has  been  hard  for  them. 

It  is  easy  enough  for  the  man  who  is  away  from 
home  all  day,  occupied  about  his  business.  He  does 
not  care  very  much  how  the  house  runs  so  long  as  he 
gets  his  warm  supper,  his  pipe,  and  his  cosey  chair  by 
the  reading-lamp.  It  is  the  woman  who  has  to  as- 
sume all  the  worry  of  making  things  go,  of  planning 
all  the  details  of  housekeeping,  of  keeping  the  servants 
good-natured,  of  making  both  ends  meet.  It  is  trebly 
hard  if  one  has  to  begin  after  fifty.  It  is  often  easier 
to  give  up  one's  money  or  one's  sons  than  to  break 
the  habits  of  a  lifetime. 

The  war  is  doing  strange  things  to  us.  It  is  giving 
us  new  natures.  I  have  not  said  my  prayers  since  I 
was  a  boy,  and  I  gave  up  reading  the  Scriptures  years 
ago;  but  the  other  night,  just  before  we  went  up  to 
bed,  I  took  down  our  old  dusty  family  Bible  and 


MY  HOUSEHOLD 

opened  it  at  the  family  record.  There,  in  my  moth- 
er's fine  handwriting,  was  the  record  of  my  birth,  and 
beneath  it,  in  Helen's,  was  that  of  OUT  Jack — who  is 
going  away  so  soon. 

"Look  here,  Helen,"  I  said  awkwardly,  "don't 
you  think  we  might  get  something  out  of  this  again 
if  we  read  a  bit  every  night  ? " 

She  nodded,  her  face  lighting  up  with  eagerness. 
"I'm  so  glad  you  feel  that  way,  John !"  she  exclaimed. 

So  I  turned  over  the  pages  until  I  came  to  what  I 
was  looking  for — the  thirty-first  chapter  of  Proverbs 
— and  cleared  my  throat. 

"'Who  can  find  a  virtuous  woman ?'"  I  read, 
"  'for  her  price  is  far  above  rubies.  The  heart  of  her 
husband  doth  safely  trust  in  her,  so  that  he  shall  have 
no  need  of  spoil.  She  will  do  him  good  and  not  evil 
all  the  days  of  her  life.  She  seeketh  wool,  and  flax, 
and  worketh  willingly  with  her  hands.  She  is  like  the 
merchants'  ships;  she  bringeth  her  food  from  afar. 
She  riseth  also  while  it  is  yet  night,  and  giveth  meat 
to  her  household,  and  a  portion  to  her  maidens.  She 
considereth  a  field  and  buyeth  it;  with  the  fruit  of  her 
hands  she  planteth  a  vineyard.  She  girdeth  her  loins 
with  strength,  and  strengthened  her  arms.  She  per- 
ceiveth  that  her  merchandise  is  good;  her  candle  goeth 
not  out  by  night.  She  layeth  her  hands  to  the  spindle, 
and  her  hands  hold  the  distaff.  .  .  .  She  looketh  well 
to  the  ways  of  her  household,  and  eateth  not  the 

79 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

bread  of  idleness.  Her  children  arise  up  and  call  her 
blessed:  her  husband  also,  and  he  praiseth  her. 
Many  daughters  have  done  virtuously,  but  thou  ex- 
cellest  them  all/ 

"Thou  excellest  them  all!"  I  repeated  softly. 

"Oh,  John  I"  murmured  Helen,  and  a  blush  flickered 
prettily  for  a  moment  upon  her  cheek.  "Don't  you 
think  you  might  get  a  little  tired  of  a  woman  quite 
as  competent  as  all  that?" 


80 


Ill 

MY  FRIENDS 

"The  End  of  worldly  life  awaits  us  all: 
Let  him  who  may,  gain  honor  ere  death." 

We  were  just  getting  up  from  breakfast  the  Monday 
morning  after  our  return  to  New  York  when  the  door- 
bell rang  and  our  old  friend  Kenneth  Adams  came  in, 
pale  and  agitated. 

"What's  the  matter,  Ken?"  asked  Helen.  "Did 
your  cook  spoil  the  coffee?" 

"No,"  he  replied  nervously.  "We  haven't  any  cook 
— but  that's  not  my  trouble.  Lucy's  got  appendicitis 
—at  least  that  is  what  young  Hopkins  says,  and  I 
haven't  any  reason  to  doubt  his  word.  He  says  she 
ought  to  be  operated  on  immediately." 

"What  a  shame  I"  said  Helen.  "Still,  she'll  be  ever 
so  much  better  without  it.  Of  course  the  operation 
isn't  pleasant,  but  once  her  appendix  is  out " 

"Yes,  but  who's  going  to  take  it  out?"  demanded 
Kenneth. 

"What's  the  matter  with  McCook?"  I  inquired, 
with  callous  levity.  "He's  supposed  to  be  our  best 
local  excavator,  isn't  he?" 

"McCook?  He's  been  in  Paris  for  two  years  and  a 
half!" 

81 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"Oh,  yes,  I  remember,"  I  admitted.  "So  he  has. 
How  about  Furness  ? — he's  one  of  the  l  Big  Four.' ' 

"Furness  sailed  with  the  Fordyce  Unit  last  spring. 
He's  on  the  firing-line." 

"Well,  Jameson  then.  One  is  about  as  good  as 
another." 

"Jameson's  gone,  too." 

"Farley?" 

"Farley's  down  in  Washington — he's  a  major,  I 
believe — helping  on  some  advisory  medical  board." 

"By  George!"  I  ejaculated  with  more  sympathy. 
"Some  medical  exodus — what?" 

"I'm  at  my  wits'  end !"  declared  Adams.  "All  the 
big  operators  have  gone  away.  I've  called  up  hos- 
pital after  hospital,  doctor's  office  after  doctor's  of- 
fice, and  they  all  tell  me  the  same  thing — Dr.  So-and- 
So  has  been  away  since  June  or  July  in  1914 — or 
whatever  the  fact  is." 

"But  what's  the  matter  with  Freylingheusen?"  I 
queried.  "I  saw  him  at  the  theatre  the  other  night." 

"  Freylingheusen  ?  "  retorted  Adams  bitterly.  "  Why, 
he's  a  thousand  years  old !  Appendicitis  wasn't  even 
invented  when  he  went  to  the  medical  school.  I 
wouldn't  trust  him  to  cut  up  cat  meat,  let  alone  my 
wife.  I  tell  you  I'm  up  against  it ! " 

"But  the  hospitals  can't  be  absolutely  denuded," 
I  insisted.  "Surely  you  can  get  some  one " 

"Some  one — yes.  But  would  you  want  just  some 
82 


MY  FRIENDS 

one  to  operate  on  Helen  here?  The  hospital  staffs 
have  been  just  about  cut  in  half,  and  the  fellows  that 
are  left  are  the  young  ones  nobody  ever  heard  of." 

He  wiped  the  sweat  from  his  forehead. 

"I  don't  know  what  to  do!"  he  groaned.  "Hop- 
kins keeps  assuring  me  that  the  operation  is  a  perfectly 
simple  one  and  that  nobody  thinks  anything  of  it  at 
all  these  days.  'Only  five  per  cent  mortality/  he  says. 
Think  of  telling  me  that.  ' Mortality' — nice  word  to 
have  a  surgeon  chuck  at  you !  He  suggests  I  should 
engage  a  Hebrew  friend  of  his  named  Oppenheim — 
sounds  like  a  novelist! — but  I  have  an  idea  that  he 
really  wants  to  do  the  operation  himself." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  let  him?" 

"Hopkins?    Nonsense!" 

"Why?" 

"Why — he's  too  young  for  one  thing.  He's  all 
right  as  a  sort  of  general  practitioner " 

"How  old  is  he?" 

Adams  hesitated. 

"I — don't — know,"  he  answered  slowly.  "Come  to 
think  of  it,  he  must  be  well  over  forty." 

"Well,"  I  retorted.  "If  he's  ever  going  to  be  old 
enough  to  operate  I  should  think  he  would  be  now. 
Why  don't  you  let  him?" 

My  friend  waved  a  frenzied  hand. 

"I  wouldn't  let  him  touch  Lucy  with  a  ten-foot 
pole.  I  won't  have  an  inexperienced  man  slashing 

83 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

up  my  wife.  I  want  the  biggest  surgeon  there  is — 
and  he'd  be  none  too  good.  There  must  be  some  one 
— even  in  another  city." 

Helen  had  arisen  and  had  been  standing  looking 
out  into  the  sunlit  yard  of  the  day-school  in  our  rear. 
Now  she  turned  and  laid  her  hand  on  Kenneth's 
arm. 

"Listen,  Kenneth!"  she  admonished  him.  "I 
know  exactly  how  you  feel  and  I'm  awfully  sorry  about 
Lucy — but  things  aren't  as  bad  as  they  seem  just  at 
this  moment.  We've  been  away  and  haven't  kept  in- 
touch,  but  perhaps  we  can  understand  all  the  better. 
Now,  from  what  you  say  it  would  appear  that  most  of 
the  well-known  surgeons  have  gone  away — to  France, 
or  Washington,  or  medical  reserve  officers'  camps. 
However,  the  hospitals  are  still  manned  and  equipped. 
The  big  men  all  have  to  die  off  some  time.  There  are 
always  others  just  as  good — or  practically  so — to  fill 
their  places.  I've  heard  both  Oppenheim  and  Hop- 
kins very  well  spoken  of.  Why  don't  you  try  one  of 
them?" 

But  Kenneth  shook  his  head  gloomily. 

"No,"  he  retorted.  "Nobody  but  the  biggest  man 
in  the  business  is  going  to  operate  on  my  wife!  I 
thought  maybe  I'd  overlooked  some  one  and  that  you 
might  be  able  to  suggest  a  name.  But  I'll  have  to 
try  elsewhere.  There  must  be  some  crackerjack  sur- 
geon who  hasn't  gone." 

84 


MY  FRIENDS 

"What  do  you  suppose  other  people  will  do?"  I 
asked  rather  impatiently. 

"  I  don't  know  what  they'll  do,"  he  declared  wildly. 
"What's  that  to  me?  That's  an  entirely  different 
matter,  isn't  it?"  He  got  up,  removed  his  hat  from 
the  table  where  he  had  laid  it,  and  took  a  step  toward 
the  door  without  offering  to  shake  hands.  "There 
must  be  some  one !"  he  kept  repeating. 

"Try  Oppenheim,"  urged  Helen. 

"A  fellow  I  never  heard  of!"  he  almost  shouted. 
"I'd  rather  have  Hopkins!" 

He  turned  and  hurried  out  into  the  front  hall, 
mumbling  to  himself.  The  door  slammed  and  I  saw 
his  shadow  fall  across  the  window. 

"Poor  Kenneth!"  sighed  Helen.  "I  don't  blame 
him  for  being  nervous  about  Lucy,  but,  really,  don't 
you  think  there  is  a  touch  of  egotism  about  his  in- 
sistence upon  his  surgical  rights?  It  isn't  as  if  there 
were  no  surgeons  capable  of  taking  out  Lucy's  ap- 
pendix. And,  honestly,  her  appendix  isn't  any  more 
valuable  than  anybody's  else." 

"Of  course  it  isn't!"  I  answered.  "The  luxury, 
or  at  any  rate  the  comfort,  most  of  us  have  enjoyed 
in  America  has  given  us  an  artificial  sense  of  our  own 
physical  importance.  Because  we  want  things  for  our- 
selves they  have  got  to  be  better  than  what  are  quite 
good  enough  for  other  people,  who  are  used  to  getting 
in  line  and  taking  what  is  handed  out  to  them.  We 

85 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

must  have  the  best  seats  at  the  theatre,  the  corner 
suite  at  the  hotel,  and  a  private  stateroom  on  the  Pull- 
man  " 

"The  choicest  cuts  of  beef,  the  most  expensive 
automobiles,  the  richest  man  in  town  to  marry  our 
daughter,  and  the  most  famous  surgeon  in  the  coun- 
try to  operate  on  us.  Well,  it  isn't  going  to  be  so  any 
longer.  There  aren't  going  to  be  any  favorites.  First 
come  will  be  first  served — and  maybe  the  last  will  go 
without." 

"I  see  where  we  have  simply  got  to  keep  well!"  I 
remarked. 

Helen  laughed. 

"I  forbid  you  to  have  appendicitis,"  she  said. 

I  had  not  been  to  my  office  since  the  eventful  day 
of  our  return,  having  availed  myself  of  my  partner's 
suggestion  that  I  should  get  my  domestic  affairs  in 
order  before  bothering  my  head  about  business.  The 
task  of  readjusting  those  affairs  to  the  new  conditions 
in  which  we  found  ourselves  had  proved  far  less  diffi- 
cult than  I  had  anticipated.  For  example,  save  for 
the  fact  that  we  were  unable  to  take  our  customary 
Sunday  afternoon  run  into  the  country  I  should  not 
have  noticed  the  absence  of  our  motor.  We  had  not 
as  yet  had  time  to  ascertain  who  of  our  friends  had 
returned  to  town  and  we  had  all  been  so  busy  that  the 
influence  of  the  war  had  hardly  made  itself  felt;  save 

86 


MY  FRIENDS 

for  the  necessity  of  the  comparatively  trifling  econ- 
omies we  had  inaugurated. 

As  I  walked  down-town  I  was  struck  by  the  pro- 
fusion of  "To  Let"  and  "For  Sale"  signs  displayed 
upon  both  sides  of  the  street.  In  place  of  the  previous 
scattering  few,  they  now  everywhere  thrust  them- 
selves upon  one's  notice.  At  the  apartment-house  on 
the  corner  I  found  that  they  had  replaced  the  elevator 
men  with  women.  Two  military  service  motors  passed 
me  driven  by  young  ladies  in  khaki,  and  I  observed 
with  interest  two  little  girls  delivering  telegrams.  I 
wasn't  looking  for  war  signs.  In  fact,  my  attitude 
had  been  rather  one  of  scepticism.  Apart  from  the 
slump  in  my  own  business  I  had  as  yet  seen  no  reflec- 
tion of  war  in  actual  conditions.  Business  seemed 
to  be  going  on  as  usual,  and  Fifth  Avenue  had  never 
been  so  crowded  with  motors.  However,  I  encoun- 
tered Jim  Lockwood,  and  farther  along  Horace  Gib- 
son, both  men  of  about  my  age  and  in  uniform,  taking 
their  small  girls  to  school,  and  wondered  what  sort 
of  military  service  they  were  engaged  in.  Between 
Seventy-second  and  Thirty-fourth  Streets  I  passed  or 
overtook,  by  actual  count,  twenty-seven  men  in  army 
or  navy  uniforms — before  nine  o'clock — and  at  Six- 
tieth Street  I  heard  a  humming  like  that  of  a  gigantic 
cockchafer  and,  looking  overhead,  saw  a  monoplane 
sailing  across  Central  Park,  going  west  toward  Jersey. 
Mind  you,  if  I  had  been  in  New  York  right  along  I 

87 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

probably  shouldn't  have  paid  any  attention  to  these 
phenomena,  but  I  had  been  away,  practically  asleep 
on  a  sugar-plantation,  for  nearly  ten  months,  and 
everything — as  the  saying  is — "hit  me  between  the 
eyes."  That  aeroplane  particularly !  A  year  ago  the 
whirr  of  its  propeller  would  have  brought  every  house- 
maid out  into  the  street  within  the  radius  of  three 
miles,  and  now — nobody  paid  the  slightest  attention 
to  it! 

Along  Fifth  Avenue  in  the  course  of  my  walk  of 
only  two  miles  I  saw  innumerable  service-flags,  the 
stars  running  from  one  to  five  in  private  houses  and 
as  high  as  fifty  or  sixty  on  one  or  two  of  the  largest 
stores.  The  sidewalks,  of  course,  were  just  as  full  of 
people  as  ever,  but  there,  before  my  eyes,  was  the 
tangible  evidence  that  at  least  a  regiment  of  men  had 
gone  to  the  front  from  the  immediate  neighborhood. 
Two  crowded  buses  containing  a  company  of  negro 
guardsmen  came  out  of  Fifty-seventh  Street  and  turned 
up  Fifth  Avenue  without  attracting  more  than  a 
casual  glance  from  the  pedestrians.  In  the  Subway  I 
read  the  notice  that  the  Interborough  Railroad  had 
lost  no  less  than  twelve  hundred  and  sixty  employees 
on  account  of  enlistment.  Three  officers  in  uniform 
in  adjacent  seats  to  my  own,  going  down-town,  seemed 
to  excite  no  interest.  But  when  I  reached  the  Bridge 
and,  emerging  upon  Broadway,  perceived  the  huge 
service-flag  of  the  New  York  Telephone  Company 

88 


MY  FRIENDS 

with  its  more  than  six  thousand  stars  I  grasped,  for 
the  first  time,  the  reality  of  the  thing.  For  every 
man  a  star — for  every  star  a  hero !  What  a  host  of 
them!  What  a  glory. 

Somehow  my  eyes  grew  moist  at  the  vision  of 
those  hundreds  of  boys — round-shouldered,  pasty- 
faced,  undernourished — chaps  you  wouldn't  have 
credited  with  any  particular  idealism — whose  chief 
interest  you  would  have  assumed  to  be  an  evening 
spent  at  the  movies  with  some  gum-chewing,  muddy- 
complexioned  girl — now  stumping  along  with  set  faces 
to  the  whistle  of  the  fife  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 
Youthful  cynics,  most  of  them,  sophisticated  to  the 
ways  of  business  and  of  politics,  suspicious  of  motives, 
creedless,  churchless,  rebellious  to  authority,  sceptics. 
What  had  sent  them?  What  had  sent  my  Jack ?  For 
answer  the  inscription  upon  the  monument  in  "Sol- 
dier's Field"  at  Harvard  floated  across  the  curling 
folds  of  the  great  flag  with  its  myriad  of  stars: 

"Though  love  repine  and  reason  chafe, 
There  comes  a  voice  without  reply: 
'Twere  man's  perdition  to  be  safe 
When  for  the  Truth  he  ought  to  die!" 

Below  Fulton  Street  the  city  was  all  aflutter  with 
flags,  and  many  motors  passed  in  both  directions 
driven  by  or  carrying  officers.  It  occurred  to  me  that, 
as  I  was  in  his  neighborhood,  I  would  drop  in  on  Fred 

89 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Hawkins,  the  senior  member  of  the  firm  of  Hawkins, 
Ludlow  &  Fowler,  who  attended  to  our  law  business 
when  we  were  unfortunate  enough  to  have  any.  To 
my  surprise  I  noticed  that  the  name  on  the  door  now 
read  merely  "Ludlow  &  Fowler."  The  clerk  in  the 
outer  office  informed  me  that  Mr.  Hawkins  was  away, 
but  that  Mr.  Ludlow  would  be  glad  to  see  me  in  the 
library,  where  he  was  working.  / 

"How  d'you  do,  Stan  ton?"  he  exclaimed  cordially, 
holding  out  his  hand.  "Why,  no,  Hawkins  hasn't 
been  with  us  since  last  May.  He  went  over  with 
Pershing;  he  was  very  lucky — got  a  major's  commis- 
sion on  the  judge-advocate  general's  staff." 

"Isn't  he  a  bit  over  age?"  I  inquired,  finding  it 
difficult  to  imagine  my  rather  elderly  attorney  in 
epaulets.  "And  hasn't  he  got  several  children?" 

"He's  fifty-one,"  conceded  Ludlow.  "But  his 
wife  has  a  little  money  of  her  own  and  the  three  chil- 
dren are  all  away  at  school.  I  think  they  spend  most 
of  their  vacations  at  their  grandmother's,  anyhow. 
But  that  wouldn't  have  made  any  difference.  Fred 
began  to  get  uneasy  long  before  the  war  actually 
started.  He's  a  sentimental  cuss,  sort  of  mediaeval 
and  romantic — inherited  a  chivalric  side  from  his 
mother's  family — she  was  part  French,  you  know. 
The  day  after  the  declaration  he  simply  walked 
inhere  and  said:  'Well,  boys,  I'm  off  for  the  war/ 
And  he  went.  He'd  had  his  pipes  all  laid  for  some 

90 


MY  FRIENDS 

time.  Nothing  would  have  stopped  him.  We  of- 
fered to  keep  the  firm  together  for  him,  but  he  said 
he'd  rather  resign  and  be  foot-free.  So  he  just 
chucked  the  whole  thing  up  and  now  it's  'Ludlow  & 
Fowler.' " 

"Of  course  I'd  have  heard,  only  I've  been  away," 
said  I  in  explanation  of  my  ignorance.  "I  suppose 
I'll  find  a  lot  of  my  other  friends  gone." 

"Rather!"  he  returned.  "I  tell  you  there's  a  big 
hole  in  this  town  below  Fulton  Street.  The  last  men 
in  the  world  you  would  have  thought  of !  Gone  across 
— or  down  to  Washington  or  on  some  mission — left 
their  jobs  and  just  hiked  right  out.  Take  the  bar — 
there  are  so  many  of  'em  gone  that  we've  had  to  form 
a  big  committee  of  lawyers  to  hold  their  practice  to- 
gether for  them." 

"How  is  the  law  business?"  I  inquired  politely. 

"Rotten !"  he  grinned.  "But  what  do  you  expect? 
There  isn't  any  other  business — except  war  business — 
to  be  any  law  business  about." 

"I  know  that  the  surgeons  are  pretty  well  cleaned 
out,"  said  I,  thinking  of  Ken  Adams  and  his  appen- 
dicitis case. 

"Oh,  there  aren't  any  surgeons!"  he  agreed. 
"You'd  be  lucky  to  get  anybody  to  treat  you  for 
mumps.  If  the  general  health  wasn't  so  much  better 
than  usual — from  cutting  out  rich  grub  and  rum — I 
don't  know  what  we'd  do.  Glad  to  have  seen  you. 

91 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

If  you  should  have  any  law  business,  don't  forget 
us!" 

"I  shan't  have  any  law  business,"  I  answered 
grimly,  "or  any  other  kind  around  here,  I  guess,  from 
the  looks  of  things." 

The  Petroleum  National  Bank  was  on  the  next 
block  on  my  way  to  the  office  and  I  paused  at  the 
cashier's  desk  to  inquire  the  amount  of  my  balance. 
Behind  a  glass  partition  I  could  see  Rumsey  Prall, 
the  president,  sitting  in  state  at  his  mahogany  desk, 
and  after  getting  my  information  I  pushed  my  way 
through  the  brass  rail  and  went  in  to  speak  to 
him. 

"Hello,  Stanton!"  he  said,  drawing  me  into  a 
chair.  "Haven't  seen  you  for  a  dog's  age.  Where 
you  been — Paris  ? " 

I  shook  my  head. 

"Not  much!"  I  retorted.  "I've  been  dreaming 
away  nearly  a  year  in  the  Pacific." 

He  looked  at  me  with  open  incredulity. 

"That's  a  funny  safe  place  to  have  been!"  he 
ejaculated. 

"So  I've  just  discovered,"  I  replied.  "It  seems 
that  quite  a  little  has  happened  since  I  left  here.  By 
the  way,  where's  Jim  Rogers,  your  vice-president  ?  " 

"Rogers  is  running  the  Red  Cross  over  on  the  other 
side,"  he  answered.  "They  needed  a  big  man,  so  we 
had  to  let  him  go.  Phillips,  our  third  vice,  has  gone, 

92 


MY  FRIENDS 

too.  He's  in  Washington,  though.  Seen  our  service- 
flag?  Forty-seven  stars  on  it !"  he  added  proudly. 

On  the  corner  of  Wall  Street  I  ran  into  Allston 
Hopkins  dressed  as  a  captain,  walking  with  his  son 
Sam,  who  was  in  the  uniform  of  an  ensign  in  the  navy. 
Hopkins  is  a  civil  engineer  with  an  international  repu- 
tation, who  earns,  it  is  said,  two  or  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars  a  year.  He  nodded  to  me,  evidently 
not  aware  that  I  had  been  away. 

"Going  across?"  I  asked  over  my  shoulder  as  I 
passed. 

"I've  been  over  and  back  five  times  already/'  he 
said.  "Just  got  my  boy  a  job !" 

"Good  luck  to  you !"  I  called  after  them. 

Already  I  had  an  unpleasant  feeling  of  being  a  sort 
of  outsider — as  if  all  about  me  there  was  some  mystic 
circle  to  which  I  did  not  have  the  password — a  brother- 
hood of  which  I  was  not  a  member. 

There  were  all  kinds  of  uniforms  on  Wall  Street, 
and  several  French  and  Canadian  officers  were  stroll- 
ing along  watching  the  crowds  and  looking  at  the 
Stock  Exchange.  Suddenly  an  old  woman  carrying 
a  string-bag  full  of  bundles  pushed  her  way  through 
the  crowd  to  where  a  French  captain  in  an  army  cape 
was  standing  before  a  show-window.  She  was  shabbily 
dressed  and  her  gray  hair  was  far  from  tidy,  but  her 
eyes  were  shining  and  there  was  an  almost  reverential 
expression  oh  her  wrinkled  face  as  she  timidly  touched 

93 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

him  upon  the  arm.  He  turned  and,  seeing  her  eager 
look,  raised  his  cap,  as  she  held  out  her  hand: 

"I  just  can't  help  shaking  hands  with  you!"  she 
cried  tremulously,  and  with  little  tears  of  excitement 
in  her  eyes.  "Do  you  mind?  We  can't  ever  thank 
you  enough." 

"C'est  awe  plaisir,  madame,  que  je  vous  remercie 
pour  1'honneur  fait  a  mes  compatriotes — au  nom  de  la 
France"  and  he  bent  over  the  little  hand  with  a  bow 
that  would  have  done  credit  to  a  nobleman  of  the 
ancien  regime,  while  the  little  old  woman,  quite  flus- 
tered, looked  up  and  then  down  and,  as  if  abashed  at 
her  own  temerity,  hurried  on  lest  some  one  should  see 
her.  The  Frenchman  stood  gazing  after  her  with  his 
cap  still  raised  in  air  for  several  seconds  while  the 
crowd  swept  round  him — a  gentle  smile  about  his  eyes. 
I  couldn't  help  it — I,  too,  stepped  up  and  laid  my 
hand  on  his  arm: 

"Je  veux  vous  remercier  aussi!"  I  said,  smiling. 
"Nous  voulons  tous  vous  remercier!" 

Like  a  flash  he  gave  me  the  salute. 

"Mes  compliments,  m'sieur!"  he  responded;  then 
glancing  tenderly  hi  the  direction  of  the  little  figure 
almost  lost  in  the  crowd:  "Ah,  cette  petite  dame  agee 
me  fait  penser  a  ma  chere  grand' mere  a  Falaise!" 

The  recollection  of  that  brief  scene  stayed  with  me 
all  day.  I  think  of  it  occasionally  even  now.  I  am 
glad  that  old  lady  did  not  restrain  her  impulse  to  show 

94 


MY  FRIENDS 

her  appreciation  in  the  only  way  she  could  of  what 
France  has  done  for  us  and  for  the  world. 

At  the  office  I  found  that  my  partner  Lord  had 
already  been  hi  for  a  few  moments,  looked  over  his 
mail,  and  hurried  out  again.  Miss  Peterson  said  that 
he  had  just  made  an  unexpected  sale  of  some  bonds 
and  had  gone  over  to  the  vaults  personally  to  super- 
intend delivery.  This  was  news  no  less  grateful  than 
it  was  surprising.  Perhaps  business  was  looking  up 
again! 

Not  having  anything  in  particular  to  do,  I  started 
in  making  a  short  list  of  the  men  I  thought  I  should 
like  to  see  and  chat  with  during  the  course  of  the  day, 
for  under  my  doctor's  orders  I  had  done  no  letter- 
writing  while  on  my  vacation  and  looked  forward  with 
a  good  deal  of  pleasurable  anticipation  to  renewing  the 
old  intimacies  and  hearing  what  my  former  cronies  had 
to  say  for  themselves.  I  jotted  down  some  twenty 
names  and  told  Miss  Peterson  to  call  up  their  offices 
and  see  whether  they  were  in  town.  Half  an  hour 
later  she  laid  the  slip  on  my  desk  with  the  notes 
which  she  had  made.  I  will  give  no  names,  but 
merely  the  occupation  and  whereabouts  of  twelve  out 
of  the  twenty  of  my  former  down-town  associates: 


Bank  President:  Acting  as  assistant  to  Secretary  of  the 

Treasury  in  Washington. 
Manufacturer:  Member  of  National  Council  of  Defense 

in  Washington. 

95 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

,  Lawyer:  Major,  Military  Intelligence,  Washington. 

,  Lawyer:  Member  Special  Commission  to  Russia. 

,  Vice-President  of  Trust  Company:  Red   Cross 

executive  in  Paris. 

,  Capitalist:  Y.  M.  C.  A.  executive  in  Paris. 

,  Editor:  Allied  War  Relief  in  Paris. 

,  Manufacturer :     Member   of   War   Industries   Board, 

Washington. 
,  Dealer  in  Railroad  Supplies :  Gone  to  Russia  on  business 

for  United  States  Government. 

,  Lawyer:  Executive  in  Food  Administration,  Chicago. 

,  Stock  Broker:  Major,  Ordnance  Department,  France. 

,  Lawyer:    Lieutenant-Colonel,    National    Army,    Fort 

Myer. 

Of  the  twenty  there  were  only  eight  remaining  in 
New  York !  Now  it  may  well  be  that,  had  I  extended 
my  list  to  a  hundred  names  I  would  have  found  only 
a  few  additional  absentees.  I  do  not  know.  What 
struck  me  was  that  of  the  twenty  men  I  most  wanted 
to  see  on  my  return  to  New  York,  a  majority  had 
offered  their  services  to  their  country  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  they  were  all  above  military  age,  all  promi- 
nent in  affairs,  most  of  them  earning  large  salaries. 
They  had  abandoned  their  careers  gladly  without, 
apparently,  a  moment's  hesitation,  simply  because 
they  thought  it  was  the  thing  to  do.  It  didn't,  and 
it  doesn't,  seem  to  me  particularly  important  to  know 
what  proportion  of  one's  entire  acquaintance  are  re- 
sponding to  the  call  of  duty;  but  it  is  important  to 
know  what  proportion  of  the  twenty  men  one  regards 
as  most  worth  while  are  doing  so.  If  I  had  confined 

96 


MY  FRIENDS 

myself  to  the  first  ten  names,  I  should  have  found  only 
three  of  my  friends  who  were  not  working  for  the 
government. 

There  was  nothing  doing  in  the  office  and  I  put  on 
my  hat  and  went  out  into  the  street  again.  As  I 
looked  back  at  our  front  windows  I  observed  for  the 
first  time  that  we  had  a  small  service-flag  of  our  own 
with  three  blue  stars  on  it.  Somehow  it  gave  me  a 
feeling  of  encouragement.  I  wondered  if  everybody's 
business  was  as  hard  hit  as  my  own. 

The  streets  seemed  to  be  just  as  crowded  as  ever 
with  people  hurrying  along  about  their  manif old  affairs. 
The  only  difference  was  in  the  amount  of  bunting  dis- 
played everywhere  and  the  posters,  some  old  and  torn, 
and  others  fresh  and  new,  that  adorned  every  hoard- 
ing, wall,  and  empty  barrel.  Many  of  them  were 
artistic  and  their  legends  inspiring.  Side  by  side  with 
posters  upon  which  were  displayed  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  were  others  with  the  Union  Jack  and  the  ban- 
ner of  St.  George  calling  upon  all  loyal  Englishmen 
and  Canadians  in  the  United  States  to  enlist  under 
their  own  flag:  " Britishers— Enlist  to-day!"  "British 
blood  calls  British  blood!  Sons  of  Britain  join  your 
army  here — enlist  now!" 

One  poster  especially  gripped  my  imagination — the 
figure  of  a  marine  in  khaki,  one  foot  advanced,  stand- 
ing in  front  of  the  flag,  his  left  fist  clinched  and  in  his 
right  a  pistol,  with  a  look  of  dogged  determination 

97 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

upon  his  bronzed  face.  "First  in  the  Fight — Always 
Faithful!"  Two  other  posters  showed  our  boys  in 
khaki  charging  up  a  hill,  bearing  the  flag,  and  another 
a  group,  similar  to  that  in  the  familiar  painting,  in- 
scribed "Spirit  of  1917."  That  was  it !  The  Spirit  of 
1917!  I  had  been  accustomed  to  growl  at  English 
stupidity  and  bad  manners,  to  scoff  at  French  laxity 
and  frivolity;  now  the  sight  of  French  and  English 
uniforms  among  the  crowd  and  the  French  and 
English  colors  juxtaposed  with  my  own  sent  a  fine 
glow  through  my  veins.  This  was  a  new  world  I  had 
come  back  into!  A  bigger  world — a  world  of  the 
spirit — the  spirit  of  1917!  My  blood  tingled  at  the 
thought  that  even  if  I  wasn't  going  to  be  among  the 
first  to  fight  for  freedom,  Jack  was !  I  was  exalted  by 
a  patriotic  fervor  stimulated  by  these  flags  and 
posters.  I  yearned  to  go  and  do  something  myself — 
right  off — "now" — "to-day" — not  at  a  desk  in  some 
administrative  building  but  with  a  rifle  over  my 
shoulder,  the  smell  of  powder  in  the  air,  and  my  feet 
on  the  muddy  turf. 

Then  I  gloomily  realized  that  if  my  heart  were 
young,  my  arteries  were  old !  Nevertheless,  I  assured 
myself,  they  were  not  so  old  as  Joffre's  by  nearly 
twenty  years !  Or  Cadorna's !  As  far  as  fitness  went 
I  believed  that  I  was  perfectly  sound — the  only  differ- 
ence was  that  under  a  prolonged  strain  I  wouldn't  last 
as  long  probably  as  a  younger  chap — a  purely  theoreti- 

98 


MY  FRIENDS 

cal  limitation.  To  every  intent  and  purpose  I  was 
as  vigorous  as  my  son.  After  all,  I  was  really  a  young 
man.  I  had  climbed  Fusiama  only  eight  months  be- 
fore, had  tramped  for  days  through  the  Philippines 
and  the  Islas  Adjacentes,  and  every  year  of  the  last 
ten  I  had  hunted  either  Rocky  Mountain  sheep  or  elk 
among  the  Shoshones.  I  was  as  hard  as  nails,  unad- 
dicted  in  excess  to  alcohol  or  tobacco,  could  carry  a 
sixty-pound  pack  for  hours  along  a  New  Brunswick 
portage  or  tote  my  half  of  a  canoe  with  any  French- 
Canadian  voyageur.  No,  I  was  all  right!  Yet,  here 
I  was  wandering  around  Wall  Street ! 

It  was  almost  with  relief — a  sensation  of  needed 
vindication — that  I  found  myself  being  warmly  shaken 
by  the  hand  by  Arthur  Pulham,  a  stock-brokering 
friend  of  mine  with  offices  on  the  ground  floor  of  a 
Broad  Street  building.  He  is  a  big,  husky  chap  about 
forty-three  years  old,  with  pink  cheeks,  weighs  nearly 
two  hundred  pounds,  and  has  shoulders  like  Sam- 
son's. He  spends  his  summers  sailing  a  racing-yacht 
on  Narragansett  Bay  and  always  goes  tarpon-fishing 
in  the  spring — a  crank  about  outdoor  life,  with  a  keen 
sense  of  the  value  of  money — who,  in  spite  of  a  curi- 
ous pantheistic  materialism,  had  a  lot  of  good  points, 
and  whom  I  could  count  on  in  trouble  as  a  friend. 

"Well!  Well!  John!"  he  cried  heartily.  "You 
back !  I  am  glad  to  see  you !  Tell  me  all  about  your- 
self!  How  is  Helen?  And  the  boy?  Oh,  of  course, 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

he'd  be  with  the  colors !  Great  luck  for  the  lad,  eh  ? 
Wish  I  was  his  age !  Come  around  to  the  office  and 
smoke  a  cigar?" 

I  was  glad  to  see  him  and,  having  nothing  to  do, 
followed  him  into  the  customer's  room,  which  was 
filled  with  a  heterogeneous  crowd  lounging  in  chairs 
in  front  of  a  quotation-board.  The  market  was  active 
and  depressed  and  prices  were  changing  with  great 
rapidity.  Pulham  pushed  me  into  his  private  office 
and  pulled  to  the  door.  Then  he  shoved  toward 
me  a  box  of  expensive  cigars,  helped  himself  to  one, 
lighted  it,  and  leaned  back  comfortably  in  his  arm- 
chair. 

"Well,  old  man!"  he  repeated.  "I  sure  am  glad 
to  see  you  once  more !  How  do  you  find  business?" 

"Isn't  any,"  I  answered,  smiling.  "But  from  the 
look  of  things  outside  there  you  don't  seem  to  be 
troubled  that  way." 

He  took  a  satisfied  pull  on  his  cigar. 

"No,"  he  said,  "business  is  pretty  good!  Pretty, 
pretty  good !"  He  leaned  toward  me  confidentially. 

"You  see,"  he  imparted  to  me  with  a  tremor  of 
egotism  which  he  could  not  conceal,  "I  doped  this 
all  out  nearly  two  years  ago.  In  the  first  place,  all  my 
people  got  in  on  the  'War  Babies' — Bethlehem  Steel, 
Crucible,  General  Motors,  and  so  on — and  then  I  had 
a  hunch  that,  whether  the  war  lasted  much  longer  or 
not,  there  would  be  some  bad  times  and  I  told  every- 

100 


MY  FRIENDS 


body  to  sell.  In  a  word,  we  were  bears  when  war 
was  declared  and  we've  been  bears  ever  since.  A 
fellow  can't  lose  in  this  market — all  he's  got  to  do  is 
to  sell  a  few  thousand  short  with  his  eyes  shut — that 
is,  if  he  has  a  little  real  courage." 

"A  little  real  courage!"  I  half  murmured.  Was  it 
the  cigar-smoke  that  made  me  feel  queer?  Pulham 
didn't  notice. 

"It's  the  only  sure  way  to  make  money,"  he  con- 
tinued. "Business  conditions  are  terrible!  The  rail- 
roads are  in  a  shocking  state!  It's  criminal  the  way 
the  commission  is  treating  'em.  It's  bound  to  mean 
government  ownership  sooner  or  later.  It's  a  safe 
bet  to  sell  this  market  from  now  on." 

"But  all  business  isn't  so  bad,  is  it?"  I  inquired, 
more  to  make  conversation  than  anything. 

"I  should  say  not.  The  money  some  fellows  have 
made  is  enough  to  make  you  sick — positively  sick!  I 
know  one  that  has  made  twenty  millions  since  August, 
1914." 

"Twenty  millions!" 

"Tw-en-ty!  Count  'em!  Any  number  of  fellows 
have  just  corned  it — all  luck,  of  course — just  happened 
to  be  in  the  right  thing — chemicals,  rubber,  machin- 
ery, munitions.  There's  a  chap  up-stairs  who  was  do- 
ing business  in  1914  with  one  room  and  an  office  boy. 
Now  he  has  the  whole  floor — twenty-two  offices.  Lit- 
eral truth!  Some  expansion — what?" 

101 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 


"Where  is  Dixon?"  I  asked,  looking  through  the 
office  door  of  the  adjoining  office. 

"Dixon?  Left  us.  Gone  across  to  France  in  the 
Red  Cross." 

"That's  fine  I"  said  I  warmly. 

"Yes— fine!"  he  echoed.  "Splendid,  isn't  it,  the 
way  the  fellows  are  volunteering?  Everybody's  do- 
ing something,  you  know!  Even  those  who  can't 
find  a  job  in  Washington  are  doing  their  bit  right 
here  at  home — one  way  or  another — Liberty  Loan, 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Red  Cross,  or  something.  I'd  give  my 
eyes  to  go  across  if  only  I  was  the  right  age.  But 
they  don't  want  us  old  fellows  on  the  other  side !" 

"I  suppose  you  could  have  gone  to  Plattsburg  and 
got  an  officer's  commission,  couldn't  you?"  I  hazarded. 

"Oh,  possibly,"  he  acceded  with  a  slight  frown, 
"but  there's  the  family!  You  can't  go  and  leave  a 
wife  and  five  children,  now,  can  you?  Besides,"  he 
hurried  on  without  giving  me  a  chance  to  reply,  "I've 
tried  my  best  to  get  a  job  where  what  ability  I  have 
can  be  utilized,  but  I  can't  find  a  place,  to  save  my 
life.  I've  tried  the  War  Department,  the  Navy  De- 
partment, and  written  to  Hoover,  but  all  any  of  'em 
can  offer  me  is  some  clerical  work  that  an  office  boy 
could  do.  Now,  if  they'd  put  me  on  a  commission " 

I  held  my  peace. 

"You  don't  know  how  hard  I've  worked  to  find  a 
chance  to  do  something — anything  to  help!"  he  pro- 

102 


MY  FRIENDS 

tested  with  even  more  earnestness  than  the  occasion 
would  seem  to  have  demanded. 

And  then  over  his  desk  I  noticed  for  the  first  time 
that  poster  of  Uncle  Sam  pointing  an  accusing  finger 
and  saying:  "I  want  you!" 

"No,"  I  admitted  truthfully.  "I  don't  suppose  I 
do." 

As  I  strolled  back  to  my  own  offices  the  sunlight 
seemed  to  be  a  shade  less  bright  than  earlier  hi  the 
day.  There  was  Hawkins — a  leader  of  the  bar — who 
had  thrown  up  a  career  and  certainly  not  less  than 
thirty  thousand  a  year — and  right  across  the  street 
one  of  his  best  friends  was  making  money  hand  over 
fist! 

I  found  that  Lord  had  not  yet  returned,  and  as  it 
was  nearly  lunch-tune  I  called  up  John  Sedgewick  and 
asked  if  my  old  lunch  club  was  still  going.  He  an- 
swered that  it  was,  only  there  were  now  but  nine 
members  instead  of  fourteen  as  formerly,  and  they  no 
longer  took  a  private  room  but  sat  at  a  round  table 
in  the  regular  dining-room  of  the  Noonday  Club.  He 
was  just  going  over,  he  said.  Wouldn't  I  join  him  ? 

It  was  one  o'clock  as  I  entered,  and  I  was  rather 
surprised  to  find  so  few  members  about.  Before  I 
went  away  it  had  been  always  crowded  to  overflowing 
at  that  hour,  but  now  there  were  plenty  of  empty 
tables.  Old  Thomas,  the  decrepit  doorman,  greeted 
me  warmly,  if  sadly. 

103 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"You'll  find  things  a  good  deal  changed,  Mr.  Stan- 
ton,"  he  sighed.  "It's  very  hard  for  us  to  get  good 
boys  any  more  in  the  coat-room.  And  it's  the  same 
way  with  the  waiters.  They're  just  a  lot  of  push-cart 
men.  The  club  isn't  what  it  was.  This  war's  an  aw- 
ful thing,  sir.  My  daughter's  husband,  he  got  blinded 
last  July — he  was  a  Canadian,  you  know,  sir,  and  he 
would  go  back  and  enlist !" 

I  patted  him  on  the  shoulder  and  passed  on  to  hang 
up  my  coat  and  hat.  What  could  I  say?  Sedgewick 
was  waiting  for  me  and  we  went  up-stairs  and  took  our 
seats  at  the  club  table.  One  or  two  men  were  already 
there,  and  the  others  gradually  drifted  in.  In  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  room  I  counted  four  members  in  uni- 
form. It  gave  me  a  jolt  to  see  Hibben,  the  club  ra- 
conteur, who  always  had  a  crowd  of  jovial  fellows  at 
his  elbow,  in  the  blue  jacket  of  a  lieutenant  in  the 
navy,  talking  earnestly  to  an  artilleryman  whom  I 
recognized  as  Charley  Hackett,  heretofore  an  utterly 
irresponsible  bounder,  whose  matrimonial  and  other 
difficulties  had  given  him  a  good  deal  of  rather  un- 
pleasant notoriety.  I  couldn't  quite  bring  myself  to 
accept  the  thing  as  real.  It  was  as  if  they  were  acting 
charades  or  had  stepped  out  of  a  rehearsal  of  private 
theatricals  to  get  a  bite  of  lunch.  When,  however, 
Fred  Thomas,  the  promoter,  one'  of  our  own  group, 
came  in  and  sat  down  with  us  in  the  uniform  of  a 
second  lieutenant  it  began  to  have  a  tinge  of  actuality. 

104 


MY  FRIENDS 

"You  look  fine,  Fred!"  I  exclaimed  with  genuine 
pleasure  at  the  sight  of  his  trim  military  figure. 

"Well,"  he  drawled,  "I  begin  to  feel  better." 

"Been  laid  up?"  I  asked  sympathetically. 

"Oh,  no!"  he  retorted  carelessly.  "My  health's 
been  all  right  enough.  You'll  understand  after  you've 
been  back  awhile.  It's  just  a  feeling — half  restlessness, 
half  ennui.  A  kind  of  soul  disease,  I  guess.  Nothing 
around  here  seems  worth  doing.  Hanging  around 
Wall  Street  these  days  is  like  playing  penny-ante  when 
there's  a  Harvard- Yale  football  game  going  on  in  the 
next  lot.  It  doesn't  have  the  interest  it  otherwise 
might,  you  know." 

"That's  so!"  agreed  Kessler,  the  banker  across  the 
table,  a  man  of  over  sixty.  "I  don't  know  what  we 
fellows  that  aren't  doing  anything  are  coming  to.  I 
can't  get  up  the  slightest  excitement  over  what  used  to 
thrill  me  to  the  marrow.  I  don't  care  whether  we 
make  money  or  lose  it.  Damn  it  all,  I  don't  care 
about  anything  any  more — except  to  tear  the  hide  off 
those  Germans!" 

"Everybody  feels  the  same  way,"  said  Sedgewick. 
"What  possible  difference  does  it  make  whether  you 
make  money  or  not,  or  I  win  a  case  or  not,  when 
our  friends  and  our  sons  and  our  brothers  are  going 
off  to  be  shot  up  or  gassed?  You  might  just  as  well 
expect  a  man  calmly  to  sit  and  play  checkers  in  the 
parlor  while  a  burglar  was  chloroforming  his  wife  up- 

105 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

stairs  preparatory  to  going  through  the  family  safe. 
Some  of  us  have  to  stay  here,  but  the  curse  of  the 
thing  is  that  those  of  us  who  do  can  never  explain  why. 
We'll  be  classed  with  the  swine  that  are  making  money 
out  of  it !  God,  some  of  these  fellows  make  me  think 
of  a  man  watching  his  sister  fighting  for  her  honor 
with  a  tramp  and  trying  to  sell  a  chance  to  take  a  pic- 
ture of  it  to  a  movie  concern !  And,  by  the  Lord,  they 
hope  (damn  them!)  that  she'll  last  until  the  camera 
gets  there!" 

He  threw  down  his  soup-spoon  and  glared  around 
the  table.  I  had  never  seen  the  wizened  little  lawyer 
under  such  emotional  stress. 

"Oh,  forget  'em!"  recommended  Thomas.  "Try 
and  think  only  of  us  heroes  I"  he  added  with  humorous 
sarcasm.  "Of  course  it's  rotten  to  make  an  oppor- 
tunity out  of  another  chap's  extremity — and  pretty 
nearly  treason  to  take  advantage  of  national  adversity 
— a  man  who  sells  the  market  short  at  such  a  time  as 
this  ought  to  be  taken  out  in  front  of  the  Mint  and 
shot — but,  after  all,  somebody's  got  to  keep  the  show 
going  at  home  and  a  chap  mustn't  get  the  idea  that, 
just  because  he'd  rather  like  to  wear  shoulder-straps 
and  get  credit  for  a  willingness  to  give  his  life  for  his 
country,  Pershing  can't  get  along  without  him.  I  used 
to  get  my  living  by  making  a  whole  lot  of  people  think 
they  wanted  to  buy  something  for  about  twice  what 
somebody  else  was  willing  to  sell  it  for.  Now  I'm  free 

106 


MY  FRIENDS 

to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  my  imagination.  I  shall 
probably  sit  on  a  pier  and  count  boxes  of  bully  beef 
for  two  or  three  years  and  curse  the  day  I  was  bitten 
by  the  bug  of  bravery.  But  suppose  I  was  the  editor 
of  a  paper  or  a  magazine  with  an  audience  as  big  as 
the  whole  country.  Is  there  any  doubt  but  that,  if  I 
exerted  my  influence  in  the  right  direction,  I  could  do 
literally  a  million  times  more  good  than  if  I  counted 
those  boxes  or  ripped  up  a  German's  abdomen  with  a 
bayonet?" 

"Of  course!"  "Quite  right!"  "Sure!"  agreed 
several  of  the  others. 

"Well,"  continued  Rogers  with  emphasis.  "My 
point  is  this.  That  editor  has  no  business  to  enlist  or 
to  chuck  up  his  job.  He  belongs  where  he  is.  If  he 
volunteered  it  wouldn't  be  because  he  honestly  thought 
he  could  serve  his  country  better,  but  because  he  was 
afraid  that  people  would  think  he  was  a  slacker.  In 
a  word,  he'd  be  a  coward — nothing  else !  Now  I  say 
that  the  really  brave  man — the  patriot — is  the  chap 
that's  big  enough  to  endure  the  censure  of  public 
opinion  and  keep  right  on  working,  when  instead  of  a 
chance  for  the  croix  de  guerre,  all  he's  got  a  chance  of 
getting  is  a  kick  in  the  pants ! " 

"Hear!  Hear!"  cried  old  Kessler  bitterly.  "I'd 
rather  you'd  say  that  in  uniform  than  some  other 
fellow  hi  tennis  trousers.  Don't  preach  that  doc- 
trine too  loud  or  the  country  will  be  swamped  with 

107 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

self-abnegators  crucified  to  their  present  nice  little 
jobs!" 

"It's  the  truth  all  the  same!"  shot  back  Thomas 
defiantly.  "For  example,  the  worst  danger  we  have 
got  to  face  is  the  undermining  of  our  national  morale. 
Unless  we  stamp  out  sedition  here  at  home — and  some- 
body's got  to  stay  here  and  attend  to  it — we  shall 
just  ship  our  boys  over  into  a  shambles  that  will  go  on 
forever." 

"Say,  you  fellows!  Cut  it  out,  will  you!"  re- 
quested Robinson,  a  cotton-broker,  who  had  two  sons 
in  France,  turning  a  rather  ghastly  hue.  "This  war 
stuff  is  all  right,  but,  after  all,  it's  lunch-time.  Here, 
waiter!  Bring  us  our  coffee  and  some  of  those  new 
domestic  cigars  that  only  cost  twelve  cents  apiece." 

Our  party  broke  up  a  few  minutes  later  and  I  found 
to  my  amazement  that  it  was  only  half  after  one. 
Formerly  we  had  spent  an  hour  or  more  over  the 
table.  Indeed,  it  had  always  taken  nearly  an  hour 
to  serve  the  three  or  four  courses  that  we  inevitably 
had  had — our  oysters,  soup,  entree,  and  dessert.  But 
I  observed  that  to-day,  with  but  two  exceptions,  the 
men  had  ordered  only  soup  and  corn-bread,  or 
"crackers  and  milk"  and  pie,  or  some  light  dish  of 
that  sort,  and  although  we  had  lingered  as  long  as  we 
wished,  we  were  through  in  half  the  usual  time.  Down 
in  the  hall  I  picked  up  Thomas  again  and  invited  him 
to  smoke  another  cigarette  before  going  away. 

108 


MY  FRIENDS 

"You  can't  understand  how  this,  my  first  morning 
down-town  in  nearly  a  year,  has  got  under  my  skin," 
I  told  him.  "  Everything's  different ! " 

"Of  course  it  is!"  he  replied.  "We're  different, 
too — a  good  many  of  us.  But  there  are  a  lot  of  us 
who  aren't — yet.  I  suppose  it  takes  people  a  long 
time  to  wake  up — get  going.  It  took  England  just  as 
long,  they  say.  But,  my  God,  man !  This  nation  as 
a  nation  isn't  plunging  into  war !  It's  wading  in,  one 
foot  at  a  time !  We're  about  up  to  our  ankles,  all  nice 
and  dry  up  above.  Wait  till  an  ice-cold  roller  hits  us !" 

"It's  hit  me  already,"  I  hastened  to  assure  him. 
"You  see  I've  come  back  to  these  things  all  at  once, 
while  the  rest  of  you  have  had  plenty  of  time  to  get 
used  to  them  gradually.  You  seem  to  have  thought 
a  lot  about  it  all." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  have.  More  than  I  ever  thought 
about  anything  else  in  my  life  before.  It  came  over 
me  all  at  once.  It  doesn't  matter  what  started  it. 
That's  personal.  I've  seen  it  in  a  lot  of  other  men, 
too.  You're  sort  of  getting  ready  for  it  without  know- 
ing it — and  then  it  breaks  on  you  suddenly — like  Paul 
when  he  walked  unexpectedly  into  the  celestial  spot- 
light. I  feel  now  as  if  I  had  a  sort  of  mission  to  go 
around  preaching — but,  of  course,  I  can't.  Yet  the 
fierce  part  of  it  is  that  there's  generally  no  fair  way 
to  tell  whether  a  man  is  a  slacker  or  not — and  all  the 
swine  take  advantage  of  that  fact." 

109 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"But  you're  looking  at  it  only  from  the  point  of 
view  of  trying  to  pillory  the  cowards,"  I  cautioned 
him.  "Why  not  look  at  it  from  the  other  side  and  be 
glad  that  the  war  has  brought  forward  so  many  men 
one  would  never  have  suspected  of  being  the  right 
stuff.  Why,  my  regard  for  human  nature  has  gone  up 
a  thousand  per  cent  in  the  past  three  hours !" 

He  looked  at  me  intently  for  several  moments. 

"By  George!  You're  right,"  he  answered  finally. 
"And  this  war  has  done  a  tremendous  amount  for  a 
lot  of  us  fellows  who  didn't  know  we  needed  it.  Take 
my  own  case.  I  was  a  successful  man.  You  know 
that,  Stanton.  I  made  three  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars in  1913.  I've  got  a  knack  for  it.  I  can  make 
money  any  time.  And  I've  been  doing  the  things 
that  fellows  like  me  do — playing  golf  for  a  hundred 
dollars  a  hole  and  racing  around  over  the  country  in 
big  motor-cars  and  giving  my  wife  all  the  money  to 
put  into  clothes  and  jewelry  she  wanted  and  all  that. 
I  thought  it  was  fine!  Well,  when  this  war  came 
along  I  saw  men  whose  abilities  and  bank-accounts 
were  ten  times  as  big  as  mine  letting  the  whole  busi- 
ness slide.  Why,  you  know  ,  he's  given  up  a 

hundred-thousand-dollar  salary  to  go  down  to  Wash- 
ington for  a  dollar  a  year !  There  are  dozens  of  'em. 
They  didn't  seem  to  think  the  money  amounted  to  a 
row  of  pins.  It  set  me  thinking.  Was  it  ?  I  asked  my- 
self. What  was  my  kind  of  success  worth  if  fellows 

110 


MY  FRIENDS 

just  tossed  it  away  like  that  when  something  bigger 
came  along  ?  Then  it  occurred  to  me  that,  war  or  no 
war,  there  were  bigger  things  coming  along  all  the 
time.  Get  me?  It's  fine  to  drive  the  boches  out  of 
Belgium,  but  it  would  be  fine,  too,  to  drive  poverty 
and  crime  and  disease  out  of  America!  It  was  an 
absolutely  new  idea  to  me.  Yet  John  D.  has  had  it  all 
the  time !  Give  the  old  man  his  due.  And  little  John, 
too !  And  if  it's  worth  throwing  away  your  fortune — 
and  your  life,  maybe — for  one  good  cause,  it's  worth 
while  throwing  Jem  away  for  another;  see?" 

I  nodded.  This  was  queer  stuff  for  a  Wall  Street 
promoter  to  put  across  after  a  midday  lunch  at  the 
club — stuff  that  was  a  little  too  abstract  for  my  mood. 
Here  was  Rogers  making  plans  for  what  he  was  going 
to  do  after  the  war — if  he  wasn't  killed — while  I ! 

"That's  a  pretty  fine  idea,  Rogers!"  I  agreed. 
"But  no  matter  what  they  do  hereafter  I  must 
say  that  it  seems  to  me  that  the  rich  have  done 
themselves  proud  so  far  in  this  war!  They've 
given  their  sons  and  themselves  and  poured  out  their 
money  like  coal  running  down  a  chute  without  a 
quiver ! " 

"You  bet!"  he  assented.  "This  war  has  rehabili- 
tated the  malefactor  of  great  wealth.  It's  a  funny 
thing.  When  I  was  a  boy  'riches  and  honor'  were 
more  or  less  synonymous.  But  latterly  in  America 
the  possessors  of  great  fortunes  have  found  them- 

111 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

selves  more  or  less  objects  of  suspicion.  Ever  since 
the  insurance  investigation  and  the  good  old  muck- 
raking days  the  millionaire  has  been  under  a  cloud. 
If  he  gave  away  a  couple  of  millions  to  a  hospital  or 
a  college  he  was  always  charged  with  trying  to  buy 
an  honorary  degree  or  salve  his  conscience,  and  the 
directors  of  the  institution  he  was  trying  to  help  were 
accused  of  receiving  stolen  goods.  'Tainted  money!' 
A  million  dollars,  I  guess,  always  carries  a  slight 
guilty  feeling  along  with  it !  No  one  can  earn  a  mil- 
lion dollars.  I  always  felt  that  way  about  my  pro- 
motion profits!  That,  I  suppose,  is  the  significance 
of  the  word  fortune.  Until  recently  the  puzzle  of  the 
rich  has  been  how  to  get  rid  of  their  money  with  honor. 
Now  they've  got  their  chance.  They're  taking  advan- 
tage of  it,  too.  They're  unloading  it  on  Uncle  Sam 
— and  Belgium — and  France — and  Poland.  They're 
all  right!" 

"Of  course,"  I  interjected,  "the  rich  can  afford  to 
do  it.  They've  got  the  money  to  give.  And  a  lot  of 
'em  won't  miss  it  so  very  much  at  that ! " 

"True,"  he  answered.  "But  they're  giving  it, 
aren't  they  ?  You  don't  belittle  the  act  of  the  fireman 
who  saves  a  woman  because  he  happens  to  be  a  fire- 
man and  to  have  the  ladder.  The  rich  were  lucky  to 
have  the  money.  Let's  give  'em  credit  for  giving  it 
away.  I  tell  you  this  war  is  going  to  make  the  rich 
respectable  again.  They  had  lost  caste.  They  were 

112 


MY  FRIENDS 

going  down.  It  gave  'em  a  chance  to  get  back.  But 
apart  from  the  giving  of  money,  the  rich  haven't  been 
behind  the  poor  in  offering  to  serve  under  the  flag 
either.  Oh,  this  war  is  doing  a  lot  to  wipe  out  the 
distrust  of  wealth.  And  the  real  underlying  reason  is 
that  it's  teaching  the  fellows  who  have  made  the 
money  that  it  isn't  of  very  much  use  to  them  unless 
they  do  something  with  it  that's  worth  while  for  every- 
body else." 

"There  won't  be  much  class  feeling  left  when  we 
get  through,  I  fancy,"  I  dared  to  assert.  "With  the 
poor  man's  boy  and  the  capitalist's  son  fighting  side 
by  side  they'll  find  out  each  other's  good  points  and 
they'll  remember  them  when  they  come  back.  The 
'brotherhood  of  man'  will  mean  something.  It's  the 
soldier's  'choice  of  honor  rather  than  life'  that  will 
make  them  all  gentlemen  together,  and  they  won't 
stand  for  seeing  the  ideals  they  bled  for  going  by  the 
board.  They'll  fight  for  them  at  home,  just  as  they 
did  in  France!" 

"What  you  say  about  the  'choice  of  honor  rather 
than  life'  is  very  true,"  he  returned  thoughtfully. 
"What  a  wonderful  thing  it  is  that  every  man  of  us 
has  the  same  opportunity  for  the  supreme  sacrifice  I 
The  same  great  prize — the  same  immortal  glory!  It 
makes  no  difference  whether  a  fellow  has  made  a  suc- 
cess or  failure  of  his  life  up  to  this  time,  he  has  the 
same  chance  as  anybody  else — to  give  all  he's  got. 

113 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

And  nobody  can  give  more.  He's  the  equal  in  that 
respect  of  the  greatest  genius  or  statesman  in  the 
land!  If  you  asked  me  who  were  the  happiest  men 
around  to-day  I  should  unhesitatingly  reply,  'the 
failures/  This  war  is  the  opportunity  of  the  unsuc- 
cessful. No  matter  how  much  a  man  may  have  foozled 
his  life,  he  can  retrieve  himself  by  a  single  act — in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye.  When  a  chap  dies  out  on  No 
Man's  Land  nobody  is  going  to  ask  whether  he 
made  money  or  not  before  the  war.  They  won't 
inquire  whether  he  lived  well  or  ill.  Whatever  his 
past  may  have  been,  he  will  have  atoned  for  all  his 


sins." 


He  took  a  long  breath  surcharged  with  tobacco. 

"The  other  evening  at  the  club  I  happened  to  ask 
after  half  a  dozen  rather  notorious  'ne'er-do-wells'  of 
my  acquaintance,  and  learned  that  every  one  was,  or 
had  been,  at  the  front.  One  was  chasing  submarines 
in  the  North  Sea  in  command  of  his  own  converted 
yacht — in  danger  every  moment  of  being  torpedoed — 
two  others,  men  of  over  fifty,  were  driving  ambulances 
on  the  firing-line,  three  had  joined  the  Lafayette 
Escadrille  and  were  risking  their  lives  daily  in  the  air, 
and  the  last — Thompson — had  died  at  the  head  of  his 
men  leading  a  charge  at  Neuve  Chapelle. 

"'Poor  old  Thompson!'  I  said. 

"'Lucky  old  Thompson,  you  mean!'  retorted  the 
fellow  I  was  talking  with.  There  were  bitter  tears  in 

114 


MY  FRIENDS 

his  eyes.    'I  was  going  with  him — only — dammit — 
my  bad  heart  threw  me  out!'" 

As  I  threaded  my  way  through  the  crowd  back  to 
the  office  I  realized  the  truth  of  what  Rogers  had  said. 
This  was  the  salvation  of  the  failure. 

How  many  fellows  we  have  known  who  in  another 
age  might  have  risen  to  supreme  heights,  through 
strength  or  bravery,  but  who  for  one  reason  or  another 
didn't  fit  into  the  scheme  of  modern  life!  Either 
they  have  plodded  dumbly  along,  making  failure 
after  failure  in  business  or  at  the  professions,  or  have 
hung  about  doing  nothing,  if  not  actually  engaged  in 
dissipation.  They  had  no  place  on  a  city  pavement 
between  rows  of  brown-stone  dwellings.  Theirs  was 
the  realm  of  sea  and  sky — gentlemen  adventurers,  buc- 
caneers— cavemen,  if  you  choose.  Now  they  have 
come  into  their  own.  They  have  found  themselves. 
They  can  follow  the  gleam  over  the  "uttermost  pur- 
ple rim."  They  can  challenge  the  rest  of  mankind  in 
bravery.  Good  luck  to  them ! 

So,  likewise,  the  war  has  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
successful  man.  It  has  suddenly  jarred  him  into  the 
realization  that  after  twenty  or  thirty  years  of  toiling 
he  has  really  no  more  to  offer  his  country  than  his 
totally  unsuccessful  brother.  He  is  up  against  the 
eternal  verities.  Once  he  has  on  khaki  and  faces  the 
probability  that  at  the  same  time  next  year  he  will  be 

115 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

lying  under  a  little  wooden  cross  on  the  outskirts  of 
some  village  of  northern  France,  he  will  wonder,  if  he 
never  wondered  before,  whether  his  so-called  success 
was  worth  the  price  he  paid  for  it.  He  will  see  things 
in  their  true  relation  to  one  another.  He  will  wish 
devoutly  that  he  had  lived  more  as  he  went  along  and 
less  in  anticipation,  and  he  will  envy  the  poor  devil 
that  he  used  to  scorn  because  he  only  earned  a  couple 
of  thousand  dollars  a  year,  although  he  had  a  jolly 
good  time  doing  it.  But,  success  or  failure,  they  are 
all  coming  forward. 

There  has  never  been  a  more  inspiring  response  to 
the  call  of  patriotism  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Men  who  are  on  the  point  of  achieving  their  highest 
ambitions  are  nevertheless  ready  to  scrap  their  suc- 
cess at  the  call  of  duty,  well  knowing  that  it  is  a  trivial 
thing  to  themselves  and  to  their  families  compared 
to  having  then*  names  upon  their  country's  roll  of 
honor.  Then*  real  success  lies  not  in  what  they  have 
done  in  the  world  but  in  their  ability  to  recognize  its 
true  value.  It  is  a  glorious  refutation  of  the  cabal 
that  we  are  a  nation  of  materialists  and  money- 
grubbers.  The  man  who  counts  his  assets  in  dollars 
will  discover  that  dollars  no  longer  count.  He  will 
perceive  the  futility  of  his  ambition  to  live  in  a  forty- 
foot  instead  of  a  seventeen-foot  house,  and  to  have 
three  automobiles  instead  of  one.  It  will  lead  him  to 
a  consideration  of  what  he  will  do  with  his  life.  He 

116 


MY  FRIENDS 

will  cease  to  measure  his  happiness  by  his  bank- 
account.  He  will  find  out  that  he  has  a  soul  as  well 
as  a  stomach;  and  even  if  this  does  not  send  him  into 
the  trenches  it  may  result  in  his  doing  something  for 
the  service  of  mankind. 

I  found  my  partner  sitting  dejectedly  at  his  desk, 
looking  about  as  cheerful  as  an  undertaker  upon  his 
introductory  visit. 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  demanded.  "Miss  Peter- 
son told  me  that  you  had  just  sold  a  block  of  bonds. 
It  didn't  use  to  make  you  feel  that  way  I" 

He  held  up  a  slip  of  paper.  It  was  a  check  for  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  I  knew  our  profits  would 
be  about  five  thousand. 

"What's  the  trouble  with  you?"  I  inquired,  as  I 
pulled  out  my  pipe  (I  didn't  know  any  easier  way  to 
save  a  dollar  a  day  than  to  give  up  cigars)  and  leaned 
back  in  my  chair. 

He  swung  around  and  looked  at  me  rather  dis- 
gustedly. 

"I  don't  want  to  make  any  more  money!"  he  re- 
marked. 

"What!"  I  exclaimed.  Such  a  statement  was  pre- 
posterous coming  from  Lord. 

"I  mean  it,"  he  said  seriously.  "It  sickens  me  to 
be  trying  to  sell  securities  at  a  tune  like  this!  It's 
like  playing  the  fiddle  with  Rome  burning.  Every- 
body has  been  doing  a  lot  of  thinking  lately,  I  guess. 

117 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

What  I've  been  asking  myself  is,  What  are  we  doing 
for  the  country?" 

"We  furnish,"  I  repeated  reminiscently,  "an  im- 
portant and  necessary  link  between  capital  and  in- 
vestment, a  market  for  the  distribution  of  money. 
We  enable  the  small  investor  to  contribute  easily  and 
safely  to  the  development  of  industry!" 

Lord  gave  a  hollow  laugh. 

"We  are  about  as  useful  at  the  present  juncture 
as  dealers  in  Punch  and  Judy  shows ! " 

"Don't  you  think,"  I  asked  with  mock  impressive- 
ness,  "that  we  are  an  important  link " 

"We're  the  missing  link  between  utter  uselessness 
and  the  pretense  of  activity !"  he  cried  bitterly.  "No, 
no.  Don't  fool  yourself !  This  bond-shop  is  only  an 
excuse  for  you  and  me  to  come  down-town  and  not  to 
do  something  else." 

"What  else?"  I  asked  curiously. 

"Anything!"  he  almost  shouted.  "We  bond  and 
stock  brokers  are  nothing  but  parasites  just  now. 
We're  about  on  a  par  with  theatre-ticket  speculators. 
I'm  getting  tired  of  sitting  here  kicking  my  heels  when 
there's  so  much  big  work  to  be  done.  It's  all  right 
for  you — you've  been  away  out  of  the  darn  thing; 
but  stay  here  awhile!  I'm  all  ready  to  fly  the  coop." 

"Look  here,  old  man!"  I  expostulated.  "You 
mustn't  talk  that  way.  One  would  think  you  were  on 
the  point  of  giving  up  business  and  going  into  the 
trenches." 

118 


MY  FRIENDS 

"I'm  thinking  of  it,"  he  replied. 

"But  you've  got  a  wife  and  child!"  I  returned. 

"Wife  and  child !  Wife  and  child  I"  he  ground  out 
bitterly.  "'Ich  habe  weib  und  kind  zu  haus'l  My 
wife's  got  an  independent  income  and  you  know  it. 
My  child  is  thirteen  years  old  and  is  a  beneficiary 
under  her  grandfather's  trust  estate  to  the  extent  of 
five  thousand  dollars  per  year.  I'm  thirty-nine  years 
old  and  the  champion  golfer  of  my  county !  Of  course 
I  can  sit  here  like  a  stuffed  dove  and  look  pained  when 
any  real  man  comes  along,  and  get  off  the  customary 
sad  rot  about  how  hard  I've  tried  to  'do  something' 
but  nobody'll  have  me,  and  how  Washington  is  over- 
flowing with  men  of  my  class  holding  down  clerical 
jobs.  That's  the  most  miserable  sort  of  camouflage. 
There  isn't  a  fitter  man  than  I  to  go  into  the  trenches 
to-day.  I've  waited  until  you  got  back — as  Morris 
was  away — but  now  I  can  face  the  thing  squarely.  At 
the  present  time  I'm  a  slacker — that's  all !  A  slacker 
— nothing  else ! " 

He  got  up  nervously  and  thrust  his  hand  through 
his  hair. 

"I  give  you  two  weeks  to  feel  just  as  I  do.  Of 
course  I  couldn't  chuck  the  business  with  everybody 
away.  I  had  to  stick  to  the  ship.  So  I  worked  the 
old  'wife  and  child'  racket  and  snivelled  around  about 
how  I'd  give  my  eyes  to  go  abroad — but  couldn't !  I 
would  give  my  eyes  to  go — that's  God's  own  truth! 
But  that  I  can't  go  is  a  damn  lie !  I've  fought  this 

119 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

thing  out  with  myself  and  it's  clear  as  daylight.  The 
world  has  got  to  be  saved  from  those  German  brutes 
and  it's  everybody's  job  to  go  to  it  and  clean  'em  up 
— unless  he  is  physically  incapacitated.  It's  the  old 
distinction  between  legal  and  moral  obligation.  If 
you  see  your  neighbor's  baby  crawling  on  the  railroad 
track  in  front  of  an  express-train  and  you  can  save  it 
merely  by  putting  out  your  hand  and  yanking  it  out 
of  the  way,  you  have  no  legal  obligation  to  do  so. 
Well,  I  haven't  any  legal  obligation  to  do  my  bit  on 
the  other  side,  either." 

"Great  Scott!"  I  replied.  "I've  got  to  have  a 
chance  to  think.  Why  couldn't  you  have  waited  a 
day  or  two  before  springing  all  this  on  me?" 

He  turned  and  looked  at  me  earnestly. 

"It  would  be  all  the  same,"  he  protested.  "Sooner 
or  later — I'm  going.  I'm  not  going  to  see  the  rail- 
road train  run  down  the  child  without  doing  what  I 
can  to  save  it." 

There  was  an  expression  almost  of  exaltation  on 
his  face.  What  curious  things  the  war  did  to  people ! 
I  looked  out  of  the  window  with  my  brain  awhirl. 
Flapping  lazily  on  its  pole  hung  our  service-flag  with 
its  three  stars.  There  was  room  enough  for  more. 
With  a  sudden  impulse  I  turned  and  held  out  my  hand 
to  him: 

"You're  right,  old  man!  To  hell  with  the  busi- 
ness!" I  cried. 

120 


IV 

MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

Out  of  space — as  infinite  as  the  remotest  star,  as 
cold  as  the  wind  that  blows  between  the  worlds,  and 
as  black  as  the  primordial  darkness  that  covered  the 
face  of  the  waters  at  the  creation  of  the  earth — I 
heard  the  faint,  persistent,  muffled  ringing  of  a  bell. 
At  first,  in  fact  for  some  time,  I  lay  there  comfortably 
in  that  detached,  impersonal,  superior  fashion  so 
familiar  to  those  who  see  other  fellows'  houses  burning 
up  or  other  fellows'  wives  running  off  with  their  best 
friends.  Some  poor  devil  had  forgotten  his  latch-key, 
probably,  or  some  unfortunate  physician  was  needed 
sooner  than  had  been  expected ! 

I  turned  over  and  tried  to  go  to  sleep  again,  then  a 
cold  chill  broke  out  upon  my  face,  and  I  started  up  in 
bed,  straining  my  ears  for  that  ominous,  distant — now 
quite  personal — sound.  It  was  my  own  telephone — 
three  stories  below!  Jack!  My  God!  Jack!  Had 
Yaphank  been  blown  up  ?  Or  had  they  shipped  him 
off  without  my  knowing  it  and  the  transport  been  tor- 
pedoed ?  Bzz-zz-zz ! 

121 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Trembling  violently  I  switched  on  the  night  light 
and  threw  on  my  wrapper  as  quietly  as  I  could,  so 
as  not  to  arouse  Helen,  who  was  sleeping  in  the  next 
room.  My  little  Jack!  My  only  son!  I  stumbled 
out  into  the  hall  and  down  the  stairs  like  a  drunken 
man,  fearful  to  answer  that  mandatory  summons,  but 
equally  apprehensive  lest  it  might  cease  before  I  could 
do  so. 

Bz-zz-zz-ZZ-ZZ !  The  change  in  the  size  of  type 
illustrates  the  effect  produced  upon  my  sleep-drugged 
ears  as  I  pushed  open  the  pantry  door. 

"Hello!"  I  answered  huskily.  "Hello!  What  is 
it?" 

"Is  Mrs.  Stanton  there?"  inquired  a  metallic  female 
voice. 

"This  is  Mister  Stanton,"  I  replied.  "Give  me  the 
message." 

"I  must  speak  to  Mrs.  Stanton!"  retorted  the  per- 
son at  the  other  end  of  the  wire. 

"If  it's  any  bad  news—"  I  choked.  "Please— 
tell-^/" 

"Oh,  it  isn't  any  bad  news!  I'm  sorry  if  I  fright- 
ened you,"  said  SHE,  for  that  is  the  only  typograph- 
ical method  of  describing  this  authoritative  lady. 
"But  I  want  Mrs.  Stanton  at  once.  I  need  her  at  the 
Pennsylvania  Station." 

Me.  "What  the— I  How  do  you  mean?  What 
are  you  talking  about?  She's  sound  asleep  in  bed!" 

122 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

SHE.  "Naturally!  This  is  Miss  Pritchett  talk- 
ing, chairwoman  of  your  wife's  Committee  of  the 
Local  Canteen.  She's  under  orders,  you  know.  We've 
fifteen  hundred  soldiers  coming  in  from  Spartanburg 
at  four  o'clock  and  it's  now  two  fifty-five.  I've  got 
to  get  thirty  women  down  there  to  feed  those  men  in 
an  hour,  Mrs.  Stanton  among  them.  I  shall  see  that 
the  food  is  there." 

Me.  "But — !  How  on  earth!  You  can't  expect 
my  wife  to  get  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night  and  go 
down  to  the  Pennsylvania  Station !  You're  crazy ! " 

SHE  (icily) .  "  Will— you— kindly— transmit— the— 
order — to — your — wife  ?  " 

Me.  "Look  here,  Miss  Whateveryournameis !  You 
must  have  got  hold  of  the  wrong  Stanton — "  I 
stopped  abruptly,  confronted  by  the  peculiar  opaque- 
ness of  sound  that  clothes  a  transmitter  when  the 
other  party  has  hung  up. 

"Well  I"  I  remarked  to  the  alarm-clock  on  the  shelf. 
"What  do  you  think  of  that !" 

Well,  what  did  I  think  of  it  ?  I  didn't  know  what  I 
thought  of  it.  Miss  Whateverhernamewas  seemed  to 
know  very  definitely  what  she  was  talking  about — but 
to  arouse  my  wife  at  three  A.  M.,  even  if  she  had  been 
careless  enough  to  allow  her  name  to  be  used  on  a 
committee,  and  send  her  chasing  off  across  the  city 
was  inconceivable ! 

I  found  a  tin  box  of  cigarettes,  lit  one,  and  sat  down 
123 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

on  the  ice-box.  The  business  just  showed  how  foolish 
it  was  for  anybody  to  get  mixed  up  with  things  one 
didn't  know  anything  about.  Canteen!  Imagine 
Helen — far  more  gentle  and  retiring  than  her  name- 
sake of  Troy  (Asia  Minor) — trying  to  hustle  coffee- 
cans  and  sandwich-trays  for  a  lot  of  rookies  who  would 
probably  yell  at  her  as  if  she  were  a  barmaid.  It 
wasn't  decent!  It  wasn't  possible — absolutely  not 
possible!  Imagine  some  one  calling  my  wife 
"Birdie"! 

"No !"  said  I  sternly  to  the  alarm-clock.  "If  there 
isn't  any  mistake,  there  ought  to  be !  That  antique 
Amazon  can  get  along  without  Helen.  I'm  going  back 
to  bed." 

Having  reached  this  most  sensible  decision  I  opened 
the  ice-chest,  took  a  couple  of  bites  out  of  an  apple 
that  I  found  there,  drank  half  a  glass  of  milk,  and 
slowly  climbed  up  the  stairs  again.  Helen  was  look- 
ing over  the  banisters. 

"What  is  it?"  she  queried  sharply.  "Anything 
about  Jack?" 

"Oh,  no — it's  nothing!"  I  replied,  taking  a  final 
pull  on  my  cigarette.  "Nothing  at  all!  Let's  go  to 
bed!" 

She  eyed  me  suspiciously. 

"Who  was  it?"  she  demanded. 

"Oh,  some  woman — I  didn't  get  the  name." 

"What  did  she  want?" 

124 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

It  was  no  use ! 

"She  said  that  she  wanted  you  to  go  and  help  feed 
a  lot  of  soldiers  over  at  the  Pennsylvania " 

Helen — the  elegant  Helen! — had  suddenly  become 
galvanized ! 

"Miss  Pritchett— it  was  Miss  Pritchett!"  she  al- 
most shouted.  "My  captain!  Order  me  a  taxi,  will 
you?" 

Already  she  had  hurried  back  to  her  bedroom. 

"Taxi?    You  don't  mean  you're  going " 

"Of  course  I'm  going !" 

"There'll  be  plenty  of  women " 

"I'll  be  one  of  them." 

"Helen,"  I  expostulated.  "You  mustn't  do  this 
kind  of  thing.  You're  not  fitted  for  it  I  You're  not 
strong  enough,  to  begin  with.  And  you  won't  know 
how  to  handle  that  kind  of  people.  The  sort  of  woman 
that  is  needed  to  feed  a  lot  of  soldiers  is  a — a — mas- 
culine sort  of  woman — like  Miss  Pritchett!" 

I  was  shouting  through  the  door  now. 

A  subdued  laugh  came  from  inside.  "Be  a  good 
boy — order  my  taxi!" 

"Hanged  if  I  will!" 

The  door  opened  just  a  crack. 

"John,  you  goose,  don't  you  realize  I've  got  to  go? 
I'm  pledged  to.  I'd  be  forever  disgraced  if  I  didn't. 
Besides,  I  want  to !  Please  order  me  a  taxi.  If  you 
don't,  I'll  be  late.  I'm  almost  dressed !" 

125 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Almost  dressed!  Five  minutes!  Usually  Helen 
took  fifty! 

"You're  crazy!"  I  retorted.  "Of  course,  if  you 
insist,  I'll  order  a  taxi,  but  I'm  not  going  to  have  you 
go  over  there  alone  at  this  time  of  night.  It  isn't 
decent.  I'm  going  with  you !" 

"Then  you'd  better  get  started!"  she  laughed, 
"instead  of  standing  there  talking,  in  your  pajamas. 
Come  ahead !  It  will  probably  do  you  good.  Besides, 
it  will  give  you  a  chance  to  meet  Miss  Pritchett." 

Fuming,  and  still  more  than  half  asleep,  I  telephoned 
for  a  taxi  and  hurriedly  began  to  dress,  but  long  be- 
fore I  was  ready  the  motor  was  at  the  door  and  Helen 
was  calling  to  me  from  the  front  hall  to  hurry  up.  As 
I  came  down-stairs  I  noticed  that  she  had  on  a  brown 
military  cap  with  a  small  red  emblem  above  the  visor. 
I  hate  anything  conspicuous  or  ostentatious,  but  it 
was  so  becoming  to  her  that  I  held  my  peace.  Be- 
sides, this  sudden  call — in  the  middle  of  the  night — 
once  one  was  fully  aroused — had  something  rather 
romantic  and  thrilling  about  it.  She  intercepted  and 
interpreted  my  glance,  however. 

"It's  the  regular  canteen  uniform,"  she  explained. 
"It  helps  a  lot, in  a  crowd.  People  understand  who 
you  are  and  let  you  by." 

Up  in  the  blue  alley  between  the  housetops  the  stars 
snapped  in  the  crisp,  keen  air.  A  pale-greenish  ef- 
florescence suffused  the  sky  across  the  park  and  marked 

126 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

where  glowed  the  as  yet  undimmed  lights  of  Broad- 
way. The  city  was  still  save  now  and  then  for  the 
subdued  clang  of  a  surface-car  and  the  rumble  that, 
like  a  giant  pulse,  throbs  in  its  arteries  night  and  day. 
I  felt  the  stimulus  of  the  unusual,  the  excitement  of 
being  abroad  before  the  dawn  while  the  rest  of  the 
world  slept.  But  Helen  had  stepped  into  the  taxi 
and  I  clambered  in  after  her  as  quickly  as  I  could. 

"Where  to,  sir?"  asked  the  driver  as  he  closed  the 
door. 

"To  the  Pennsylvania  Station,"  replied  Helen  be- 
fore I  could  answer.  "And  please  hurry!" 

As  we  passed  the  illuminated  clock  in  front  of  the 
Hotel  Netherlands  the  hands  pointed  to  twenty  min- 
utes to  four.  Straight  ahead  for  a  mile  or  more  the 
street-lamps  drew  away  in  a  long  parallel  until  they 
merged  far  below  us  in  the  glow  of  Forty-second  Street. 
The  smooth  asphalt  reflected  the  lights  of  our  taxi  as 
if  wet  with  rain.  No  one  was  abroad.  The  sidewalks 
and  roadway  were  bare  of  traffic.  We  had  the  city  to 
ourselves.  Was  it  possible  that  we  were  on  our  way 
to  meet  fifteen  hundred  young  crusaders  sworn  to 
rescue  Europe  from  the  clutches  of  a  military  despot- 
ism ?  It  was  as  difficult  to  believe  as  that  millions  of 
men  had  died  or  been  wounded  in  that  same  cause. 
We  knew  it,  yet  we  didn't  know  it !  The  men  whom 
Helen  was  going  to  meet  to-day  might  be  floating 
dead  in  mid-ocean  before  the  week  was  out. 

127 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

It  occurred  to  me  as  we  whirred  down  Fifth  Avenue 
that  the  last  time  Helen  and  I  had  been  out  at  such 
an  hour  together  was  when  we  had  come  home  from 
the  Highbilts'  dinner-dance  in  February,  1914.  Not 
since  that  grand  affair  had  we  been  invited  to  any 
elaborate  function.  The  concussion  of  the  conflict 
had  demolished  the  strongholds  of  American  society 
much  as  the  German  siege-guns  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war  had  levelled  the  fortresses  of  Liege  and  Na- 
mur  and  the  garrisons  had  been  driven  out  to  mingle 
with  the  rest  of  the  population — many  of  them  for 
the  first  time  on  equal  terms. 

I  had  always  deplored  the  fact  that  Helen,  along 
with  most  of  the  other  American  women  of  her  type, 
in  spite  of  her  keen  intelligence  and  bodily  vigor  had 
been  content  to  remain  in  a  state  of  ignorance  and  in- 
activity so  far  as  current  affairs  were  concerned.  She 
had  been  quite  satisfied  with  her  friends,  her  family, 
her  social  life.  She  was  a  "perfect  lady"  and  her  cir- 
cle was  composed  of  "perfect  ladies."  She  had  not 
wanted  to  meet  any  others,  for  she  had  had  nothing 
in  common  with  them.  They  hadn't  entered  into  her 
cosmos.  Helen's  world  had  consisted  exclusively  of 
rich  women,  upper  servants,  and  high-class  shopkeepers. 
She  had  had  no  social  relations  with  the  kind  of  women 
who  went  to  market  in  the  morning.  She  had  had 
an  instinctive  feeling  that  it  was  mean  to  care  what  it 
cost  to  run  the  house  or  to  ask  the  price  of  anything. 

128 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

She  had  never  seen  the  butcher,  the  groceryman,  or 
her  own  kitchen-maid — except  the  day  she  had  en- 
gaged her.  She  had  shrunk  from  any  contact  with 
people  like  street-car  conductors,  ticket-sellers,  or 
taxicab-drivers.  She  had  been  so  protected  all  her  life 
that  it  had  caused  her  acute  suffering  to  talk  to  any- 
body whose  point  of  view  wasn't  perfectly  familiar 
to  her  beforehand.  She  had  viewed  women  who  "  went 
in"  for  suffrage,  temperance,  or  other  movements  as 
freakish  or  notoriety-seekers.  She  had  held  woman's 
place  to  be  not  so  much  in  the  home  as  in  the  drawing- 
room.  In  a  word,  even  if  not  in  the  words  of  the 
hymn  a  "broken  and  useless  vessel,"  she  had  been 
nevertheless  a  thing  apart,  whose  value  lay,  if  any- 
where, in  her  very  inutility — a  "sensitive  plant,"  mov- 
ing in  an  atmosphere  more  rarefied  than  that  of  a 
noblewoman  at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Sometimes  I  have  wondered  if  this  war  has  not  saved 
her  from  the  guillotine.  Anyhow,  it  has  saved  her 
from  herself. 

We  had  not  been  back  in  New  York  a  month  before 
I  observed  an  extraordinary  change  in  Helen's  point 
of  view.  In  the  first  place,  as  she  had  no  motor  she 
was  obliged  to  make  use  of  public  conveyances,  and, 
although  at  first  she  walked  in  preference  to  so  doing, 
she  soon  so  exhausted  herself  that  she  had  no  choice 
in  the  matter.  How  are  the  mighty  fallen!  Helen 
a  strap-hanger!  Her  next  discovery  was  that  the 
•  129 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

butcher  was  really  a  very  well-meaning  human  being 
who  would  much  rather  transact  his  business  with  her 
than  with  her  cook.  She  now  confesses  that  she  looks 
forward  to  her  morning  excursion  to  Third  Avenue  as 
one  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  her  day.  More- 
over, as  she  has  fewer  servants  she  is  compelled  to  see 
more  of  them  and  to  pay  more  attention  to  the  way 
they  perform  their  duties.  She  has  incidentally 
learned  that  they  have  feelings  of  their  own  and  are 
not  the  hostile  automata  that  she  supposed.  Indeed, 
she  now  finds  that  there  are  no  less  than  nine  brothers 
and  cousins  of  our  small  family  of  domestics  fighting 
with  the  Allies  and  that  two  have  already  been  killed. 
You  can't  say  "Home,  James!"  with  quite  the  same 
inflection  or  with  your  nose  quite  so  high  in  the  air 
when  James's  only  brother  got  a  machine-gun  bullet 
through  his  heart  only  last  week  at  Poelcappelle.  It 
makes  a  vast  difference,  too,  when  you  find  the  girls 
in  the  kitchen  ready  and  eager  to  roll  bandages  and 
knit  sweaters.  Up  to  this  tune  the  sisterhood  of  women 
has  always  seemed  more  theoretical  than  the  brother- 
hood of  man.  The  ordinary  lady  of  fashion  has  al- 
ways had  her  butler  and  chauffeur  standing  on  guard 
between  her  and  the  world.  And  now  those  guards 
are  gone — at  least  ours  are. 

A  year  ago  I  should  have  been  inclined  to  believe 
that  Helen  couldn't  have  changed,  that  her  attitude 
toward  life  would  have  been  as  immutable  as  the  ex- 

130 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

pression  upon  the  face  of  a  graven  image.  Offhand 
one  would  have  agreed  with  Mrs.  Putnam  when  in 
her  analysis  of  "The  Lady"  she  says:  "Sentimentally 
the  lady  has  established  herself  as  the  criterion  of  a 
community's  civilization.  Very  dear  to  her  is  the  ob- 
servance that  hedges  her  about.  In  some  subtle  way 
it  is  so  bound  up  with  her  self-respect  and  with  her 
respect  for  the  man  who  maintains  it,  that  life  would 
hardly  be  sweet  to  her  without  it.  When  it  is  flatly 
put  to  her  that  she  cannot  become  a  human  being  and 
yet  retain  her  privileges  as  a  non-combatant,  she  often 
enough  decides  for  etiquette." 

There  is  a  student  of  women  speaking  about  women, 
and  yet  her  generalization  has  been  proved  an  error 
only  seven  years  after  her  book  was  written.  The 
ladies  of  America  haven't  decided  in  "favor  of  eti- 
quette"— with  one  accord  they  have  chosen  to  become 
human  beings. 

While  it  is  true,  as  Mrs.  Putnam  says,  that  "a  lady 
may  become  a  nun  in  the  strictest  and  poorest  order 
without  altering  her  view  of  life,  without  the  moral 
convulsion,  the  destruction  of  false  ideas,  the  truth  of 
character  that  would  be  the  preliminary  steps  toward 
becoming  an  efficient  stenographer,"  nevertheless  that 
convulsion  has  occurred  and  all  over  the  country 
women  of  every  class  are  rallying  to  the  call  of  "Ser- 
vice." The  millionaire's  wife  is  working  side  by  side 
with  the  grocer's  daughter,  the  music-teacher,  and  the 

131 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

seamstress,  at  the  Red  Cross  building,  the  "rest  huts," 
and  "hostess  houses"  of  the  Y.  M.  and  Y.  W.  C.  A., 
the  canning-kitchens,  the  canteens,  hi  the  Food  Ad- 
ministration's house-to-house  canvas,  and  in  the  thou- 
sand and  one  other  activities  which  they  can  carry  on 
so  much  better  than  men.  The  woman  power  of  the 
United  States  is  being  mobilized  with  extraordinary 
rapidity.  Already  the  women  of  New  York  have 
demonstrated  their  effectiveness  in  the  State  military 
census  which  was  carried  on  by  a  volunteer  body  of 
five  thousand  women  workers.  There  are  in  the 
United  States  probably  ten  million  women  who  could 
take  the  places  of  men  with  the  colors  or  engaged 
in  war  work.  Another  ten  million  are  able  to  help. 
It  would  not  take  long,  if  it  were  necessary,  for  this 
great  reserve  army  of  twenty  million  women  to  be- 
come almost  as  efficient  as  the  women  of  England 
are  to-day.  It  should  mean  that  the  United  States 
can  send  as  many  men  as  will  be  needed  to  insure 
the  defeat  of  the  Central  Powers  without  a  vital  re- 
duction in  producing  power,  however  large  that  num- 
ber may  be.  But  better  than  beating  Germany  is  the 
democratizing  effect  which  this  common  service  is 
having  upon  the  women  who  are  sharing  in  it. 

It  is  teaching  the  women  of  leisure  that  there  is  no 
play  which  is  half  as  much  fun  as  real  work  and  that 
the  people  who  are  doing  something  are  vastly  more 
interesting  than  those  who  aren't.  It  is  teaching  the 

132 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

worker  that  the  society  woman  has  her  good  points, 
and  that  the  main  trouble  with  her  is  that,  never  hav- 
ing had  any  contact  with  the  edges  of  life,  she  doesn't 
know  how  to  act  along  with  real  folks.  It  is  teaching 
all  of  them  that  when  it  comes  to  service  the  only  thing 
that  counts  is  delivering  the  goods,  and  it  is  bringing 
into  the  limelight  a  lot  of  extraordinarily  able  women 
of  all  classes. 

The  striking  feature  of  this  wholesale  transmog- 
rification is  the  ease  and  rapidity  with  which  women, 
like  Helen,  have  sloughed  off  the  skin  of  their  con- 
ventionality, shed  all  their  pretenses  and  affectations, 
and  plunged  in  medias  res  as  if  they  had  never  done 
anything  else  all  their  lives.  They  remind  me  some- 
how of  chickens  who  have  felt  the  tingle  of  life  and 
suddenly  cracked  through  their  shells — they  are  just 
as  keen  to  get  busy.  Helen  had  no  sooner  put  her 
house  in  order  than  she  became  passionately  interested 
in  everything  that  other  women  were  doing.  A  year 
ago  she  would  have  retired  from  the  world  in  shame 
rather  than  have  a  "Votes  for  Women"  poster  exhib- 
ited in  our  front  window.  It  is  there  now,  however, 
along  with  the  sign  manual  of  the  Food  Administration 
and  a  "Service"  placard  showing  the  American  woman 
as  a  modern  Joan  of  Arc  against  a  background  of  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  I'm  proud  of  all  those  cards  and 
posters.  I'm  proud  of  what  Helen  is  doing  and  of  the 
spirit  that  makes  her  want  to  make  public  declaration 

133 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

of  her  principles.  But  it  is  so  sudden!  Yet  every- 
thing is  sudden  these  days.  I  suppose  the  earthquake 
has  simply  shaken  the  frosting  off  the  fa£ade,  leaving 
exposed  the  solid  stone  and  cement  of  American 
womanhood. 

There's  a  new  community  spirit  abroad.  It's  great 
sport,  when  it  comes  to  putting  up  cherry  jam,  for 
Mrs.  Angelo,  whose  husband  runs  the  barber-shop  at 
the  summer  resort  on  Long  Island,  to  put  it  all  over 
Mrs.  Robinson,  whose  husband  controls  fifty-one  per 
cent  of  the  independent  steel  companies  of  America. 
But  Mrs.  Angelo  has  an  unfair  advantage — she  learned 
how  as  a  girl  in  Palermo.  Her  forty  cans  make  poor 
Mrs.  Robinson's  thirteen  look  like  thirty  cents.  Just 
so  that  Mrs.  Robinson  won't  feel  badly  about  it  she 
gives  her  a  friendly  pat  on  the  arm  and  an  encourag- 
ing smile. 

Then  there  is  Aunt  Silena  Pratt  who  walks  hi  to 
town  from  down  the  road  three  miles  twice  every 
week — a  vigorous  old  lady  whose  taciturn  disposition 
has  given  her  rather  a  lonely  tune  of  it  heretofore. 
You  should  see  Aunt  Silena  and  Mrs.  Trust  Company 
Thompson  hit  it  off  together.  When  Mrs.  T.  was  Miss 
Althea  Onderdonk  up  hi  Athens,  New  York,  she  had  an 
Aunt  Sally  who  was  a  "dead  ringer"  for  Aunt  Silena. 
It  makes,  no  difference  to  Althea  now  that  Silena 
doesn't  wear  corsets  and  says  "You  was"  and  "She 
ain't."  If  any  grocer  held  out  the  sugar  on  them 

134 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

they  would  all — as  a  bunch — with  hearts  beating  as  one, 
march  in  a  committee  of  the  whole  to  the  offending 
store  and — well,  you  remember  what  happened  to  old 
Floyd  Ireson  at  the  hands  of  the  women  of  Marble- 
head! 

And  the  significant  thing  is  that  they  are  keeping 
it  up.  It  was  inspiring  to  see  them  go  to  it,  but  it  is 
astounding  to  see  them  still  at  it.  They  have  got  their 
teeth  in  it  and  don't  intend  to  let  go  until  the  struggle 
is  over  and  won.  The  war  is  bringing  out  a  lot  of 
women  whom  the  world  had  forgotten,  even  if  they 
had  not  "the  world  forgot" — which  a  good  many  of 
them  had.  There  is  my  cousin  Minnie,  for  instance. 
Minnie  is  fifty-three  years  old  and  lives  by  herself  in 
a  boarding-house  on  Madison  Avenue.  She  is  a  well- 
educated,  intelligent,  and  capable  woman,  but  she 
never  married,  and  since  she  belongs  to  the  generation 
that  believed  it  wasn't  the  thing  for  women  to  have 
occupations,  has  never  done  anything  except  to  take 
trips  abroad  with  spinster  friends  and  make  herself 
generally  useful  to  her  relatives.  If  any  one  of  the 
family  is  sick  we  are  apt  to  ask  Minnie  up  to  help  us; 
if  Helen  and  I  want  to  go  out  West  we  send  for  Min- 
nie to  come  and  stay  with  the  children;  if  the  house 
needs  to  be  cleaned  while  we  are  away  in  the  summer 
we  get  Minnie  to  keep  an  eye  on  it.  We  are  always 
sending  for  Minnie,  or,  rather,  we  were  always  sending 
for  her.  Not  a  very  enviable  position  for  a  woman — 

135 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

that  of  a  family  hanger-on — the  poor  relative  always 
ready  to  use  the  opera  tickets.  Well,  you  should  see 
Cousin  Minnie  now.  She  is  the  local  commandant  of 
some  organization  or  other  and  has  her  own  hangers- 
on — dozens  of  them.  I  think  she  runs  something  like 
a  hundred  diet-kitchens — and  all  the  butchers  and 
grocers  tremble  at  her  approach.  She  has  no  time  to 
waste  on  her  relatives,  for  she  is  one  of  Hoover's  right- 
hand-maidens.  She  is  an  authority  on  cuts,  calories, 
and  cubic  contents.  She  is  living  for  the  first  time  and 
making  things  hum.  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  to  see 
her  at  the  head  of  an  Allied  Food  Commission.  Any- 
how, I  take  off  my  hat  to  Minnie ! 

There  are  thousands  of  women  just  like  her  all  over 
the  United  States.  They  are  helping  the  country  and 
helping  themselves  and  each  other,  too.  Starting 
with  the  making  of  surgical  dressings  in  1915  for  the 
Allies,  the  work  has  gradually  broadened  until  there 
is  now  hardly  anything  a  woman  can't  do  to  help — 
even  if  she  wants  to  become  a  letter-carrier  or  a  yeo- 
man in  the  United  States  navy. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  it  is  "the  fashion." 
Fashion  might  make  it  easier  to  start,  but  nothing  less 
than  patriotism  would  lead  the  women  to  keep  on. 

I  thought  of  these  things  as  I  studied  Helen's  alert 
face  under  the  flitting  lights  of  the  arc-lamps.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  she  looked  ten  years  younger.  It 
may  have  been  her  cap,  but  I  thought  she  looked  pret- 

136 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

tier  than  I  had  ever  known  her  to  be  since  we  had 
been  married.  Speeding  through  the  sleeping  city  I 
realized  all  over  again  that  I  was  in  love  with  my  wife, 
and  I  had  a  curious  sensation  that  I  was  eloping  with 
her  out  of  an  old  life  into  a  new. 

It  was  ten  minutes  to  four  as  we  rolled  up  to  the 
curb  at  the  Pennsylvania  Station.  No  red-capped 
porters  sprang  forward  to  relieve  us  of  our  bags;  no 
pompous  officials  watched  our  movements  with  cour- 
teous condescension.  The  brilliantly  lighted  concourse 
was  empty  save  for  a  few  bent  heads  partially  visible 
through  the  windows  of  the  ticket-offices. 

"They  must  all  be  down  on  the  platforms  already  I" 
exclaimed  Helen,  hurrying  toward  the  gates.  "I  hope 
we're  not  late!" 

The  guardian  at  the  head  of  the  steps  saluted  as  his 
eye  caught  Helen's  cap. 

"The  tram  isn't  in  yet,  miss,"  he  remarked  en- 
couragingly. "The  other  ladies  are  below  on  the 
platform." 

It  began  to  look  like  business. 

"Guess  I'll  come  with  you,"  I  hazarded.  "May 
I?" 

"You'll  have  to  ask  Miss  Pritchett,"  retorted  my 
wife.  "Maybe  she'll  let  you — if  she  doesn't  bite  your 
head  off  first!" 

We  made  our  way  down  to  the  lower  level  and 
looked  about  us.  At  the  farther  end  a  group  of  per- 

137 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

haps  thirty  women,  all  in  uniform,  were  standing 
about  some  crude  plank  tables  piled  high  with  rolls, 
sandwiches,  and  fruit,  while  on  two  trucks  stood  four 
huge  canisters.  The  tracks  were  empty  of  trains, 
but  there  was  an  air  of  expectancy  which  indicated 
that  we  were  none  too  soon. 

"I  must  get  assigned,"  said  Helen,  hurrying  away. 

I  followed  in  more  leisurely  fashion.  It  was  up  to 
me,  I  recognized,  to  make  some  sort  of  explanation 
to  the  female  autocrat  running  this  show,  and  I  had, 
unfortunately,  to  get  her  permission  to  remain  there 
at  all.  It  was  not  difficult  to  find  her.  There  was  only 
one  woman  there  who  by  any  possibility  could  have 
been  Miss  Pritchett.  She — a  tall,  geometrical  woman 
with  strong-minded  feet — was  standing  beside  one  of 
the  canisters,  and  her  aggressive  profile,  with  its 
firmly  compressed  lips,  left  no  doubt  in  my  mind  as  to 
her  identity. 

But  they  were  not  all  like  that.  Indeed,  between 
Miss  Pritchett  and  myself  I  descried  a  slender  Artemis, 
whose  cap  was  refusing  to  remain  on  her  chestnut  hair, 
and  whose  large  gray  eyes  let  themselves  fall  good- 
naturedly  upon  mine  as  she  tried  to  force  the  rebellious 
thing  into  place.  I  was  glad  that  I  had  heard  that 
telephone.  Surely  we  were  all  comrades — even  if  not 
yet  in  arms.  And  there  were  others,  a  few  of  whom  I 
knew  already.  A  stout  woman  with  a  slight  mustache 
and  an  unmistakably  Italian  cast  of  feature,  who 

138 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

seemed  to  be  quite  at  home  among  the  bananas,  was 
arranging  the  fruit-stand.  Assisting  her  was  a  scho- 
lastic angularity  in  specs,  and  beyond,  dallying  with 
the  sandwiches,  I  perceived  two  of  Margery's  friends. 

The  platform  was  crowded  with  women  of  every 
sort,  from  awkward  young  girls  to  motherly  white- 
haired  old  ladies,  all  with  an  unmistakable  air  of  pur- 
pose. Evidently  getting  out  at  four  in  the  morning 
had  not  proved  such  an  undertaking  to  them  as  I 
had  assumed  that  it  would  be  for  my  wife.  There 
were  shop-girls,  scrub-women,  a  couple  of  actresses, 
and  others  who  had  no  peculiarly  distinguishing  char- 
acteristics, and  among  whom — could  I  be  seeing  true  ? 
— an  elderly  female  who  strikingly  resembled  my 
friend  Mrs.  Highbilt,  in  an  old  travelling  suit.  Shades 
of  Fifth  Avenue!  She  signalled  with  a  gloveless 
hand. 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  you  mere  man?"  she 
cackled  genially. 

"Taking  lessons  from  my  better  half,"  I  admitted. 
"Honestly,  Anna,  I  think  this  is  about  the  greatest 
thing  I've  seen  since  I  got  back  1" 

She  seemed  pleased. 

"The  women  are  all  right!"  she  said  confidently. 
"All  of  them!" 

At  that  instant  we  were  interrupted  by  the  Italian 
lady,  and  I  turned  to  render  my  apologies  to  my 
nemesis  beside  the  coffee-cans. 

139 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"I  must  ask  your  pardon,"  I  began,  approaching 
that  forbidding  personality  in  considerable  embarrass- 
ment, "for  the  way  I  answered  you  over  the  telephone 
this  morning " 

"Telephone?"  she  interrupted  in  a  resonant  basso 
prof  undo.  "  Telephone !  I  never  spoke  to  you  on  the 
telephone  in  my  life." 

"  Oh,"  I  exclaimed.    "  Aren't  you  Miss  Pritchett  ?  " 

"No,"  she  replied  stiffly.  "I  am  not  Miss  Pritch- 
ett! I  am  Mrs.  Judge  Wadbone.  My  husband  is 
one  of  our  Supreme  Court  justices.  That  is  Miss 
Pritchett — over  there!11  and  she  indicated  my  goddess 
of  the  erstwhile  rebellious  hair.  "Thank  you  for  the 
compliment — just  the  same!"  she  added  rather  hu- 
morously. 

Any  disastrous  effect  that  this  thrilling  discovery 
might  have  had  upon  my  future  career  was  prevented 
by  a  heavy  rumbling.  The  train  was  coming!  In- 
stantly the  platform  became  a  hive  of  activity  as 
each  woman  rushed  to  her  appointed  position.  The 
rumbling  grew  louder,  the  shriek  of  the  brakes  rising 
high  above  its  diapason.  Soon  the  train  shot  out  of 
the  shadows  and  ground  slowly  to  a  stop  beside  us. 
Simultaneously  every  window  was  pulled  up,  revealing 
one  or  more  sober  bronze  faces. 

"It's   the   th    colored    regulars!"    a   musical 

voice  shouted  in  my  ear.    "Mr.  Stanton,  do  you  mind 
handling  those  coffee-urns  ?  "    It  was  SHE ! 

140 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

"  Anything !  Anything  for  you  !  "  I  answered  tremu- 
lously, as  SHE  shoved  me  coffeeward. 

A  couple  of  officers  had  descended  from  one  of  the 
platforms  and  were  saluting  our  commanding  officer. 
I  had  a  fleeting  vision  of  Helen — who  had  never  em- 
ployed a  colored  man  or  woman  in  our  house — care- 
fully pouring  something  from  a  steaming  pitcher  into 
a  tin  cup,  which  was  thrust  by  a  dark-skinned  hand 
from  a  neighboring  window. 

"Would  you  prefer  to  have  the  men  in  company 
formation  ?  "  asked  one  of  the  officers. 

"Thanks.  Yes.  It  would  be  quicker/'  answered 
Miss  Pritchett. 

The  major  ascended  the  platform  and  gave  some 
short,  sharp  orders.  There  was  a  loud  scuffling,  and  in 
a  moment  the  men  came  pouring  out  of  the  cars  and 
formed  company  front,  facing  the  train.  They  were  a 
fine-looking  lot  of  fellows,  those  black  patriots !  And 
they  held  themselves  erect  with  a  conscious  pride  in 
their  uniforms  that  somehow  took  hold  of  me  as  noth- 
ing had  for  a  long  time.  Strange  how  the  uniform 
wipes  out  every  difference  of  race  or  color!  Their 
serious,  intent  faces  made  me  think  of  those  graven 
upon  the  monument  to  Robert  Gould  Shaw  on  Boston 
Common  in  memory  of  the  man  who  was  "buried 
with  his  niggers." 

The  company  slowly  filed  down  to  the  end  of  the 
platform,  where  each  man  filled  his  cup  at  the  coffee- 

141 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

canister  and  received  his  sandwiches  and  fruit,  then 
filed  back  again  and  into  the  cars.  The  sandwiches 
had  all  vanished — so  had  the  bananas.  One  of  the 
coffee-canisters  had  been  overturned.  They  had  made 
a  clean  sweep  of  everything  hi  sight. 

On  the  platform  they  had  maintained  a  dignified 
silence,  but  once  back  in  their  seats  they  all  began  as 
a  matter  of  course  to  sing.  And  how  they  sang! 
Their  mellow  voices  floated  out  through  the  car  win- 
dows and  through  the  station  until  it  echoed  like  some 
big  dimly  lighted  cathedral  to  the  antiphonies  of  a 
full  choir — camp-meeting  hymns  like  "Swing  Low, 
Sweet  Chariot,"  alternating  with  such  by-gone  relics 
as  "Camptown  Races,"  "Fse  Gwine  Back  to  Dixie," 
and  "Golden  Slippers."  Then  at  a  hint  from  the 
major  a  quartet  of  tall,  handsome,  deep-throated 
lads  came  out  on  the  platform  and  gave  us  a  pro- 
gramme of  Hampton  songs,  while  all  of  us,  including 
the  shop-girls  and  Mrs.  Highbilt,  gathered  in  a  crowd 
about  them.  I've  never  heard  such  singing.  Neither, 
I  bet,  have  the  boches.  I  believe  those  fellows  will 
drive  Fritz  out  of  his  trenches  to  the  tune  of  some 
plantation  melody. 

In  the  midst  of  "Carry  Me  Back  to  Ole  Virginny" 
a  station-hand  came  running  along  the  platform  and 
said  that  the  train  was  going  to  pull  out,  that  they 
were  eleven  minutes  behind  time.  From  inside  came 
the  sound  of  a  mouth-organ  and  a  chorus  of  "Where 

142 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

do  we  go  from  here,  boys?    Where  do  we  go  from 
here?" 

"All  aboard!  All  aboard!"  shouted  the  train- 
starter. 

The  young  major  saluted  Miss  Pritchett  again. 

"Thanks  a  lot!"  he  said.  "The  men  hadn't  had 
anything  to  eat  since  three  o'clock  yesterday  after- 
noon." 

"Thank  you  for  the  concert!"  she  answered. 
"They're  a  fine  regiment !  Good  luck  to  you !" 

The  song  inside  changed  to  a  thundering  chorus  of 
"Onward,  Christian  Soldiers."  The  train  began  to 
slide  along  the  rails  and  the  major  stepped  up  on  the 
lowest  step  of  the  platform,  seemingly  loath  to  go. 

"It's  awfully  good  of  you,  you  know,"  he  added 
feelingly,  "to  take  such  a  lot  of  trouble." 

"Not  a  bit!"  she  answered.  "It's  not  much!  I 
wish  it  were  more ! " 

His  eyes  continued  to  linger  upon  her  until  an  in- 
tervening pillar  cut  off  his  view.  The  whole  episode 
had  not  taken  more  than  twenty  minutes.  Oh,  to 
be  young !  And  to  be  going !  I  was  meditating  upon 
the  misfortunes  of  being  old  when  I  was  ordered  to 
superintend  the  refilling  of  the  coffee-urns.  Mrs. 
Wadbone  was  brushing  off  the  tables  and  Mrs.  High- 
bilt  was  overseeing  the  efforts  of  two  truckmen  who 
were  staggering  from  the  other  end  of  the  platform 
with  a  basket  of  sandwiches. 

143 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"You  get  the  coffee  up-stairs  in  the  restaurant/' 
ordered  Miss  Pritchett.  "These  men  will  take  the 
cans  up  in  the  elevator  to  the  main  level." 

An  official  now  came  down  the  iron  steps  from  the 
gate. 

"We  have  just  had  word  that  the  next  tram  with 
fifteen  hundred  conscripts  from  Yaphank  has  been 
delayed  two  hours.  It  will  get  in  about  quarter  past 


six." 


Miss  Pritchett  laughed  and  shrugged  her  shapely 
shoulders. 

"You'll  let  us  sleep  in  the  waiting-room ? "  she  asked. 

"The  station  is  yours!"  he  answered  gallantly. 
"It's  too  bad!" 

"Come  on,  everybody!"  she  called.  "Let's  go  up 
to  the  restaurant  and  get  some  coffee  ourselves." 

Miss  Pritchett  and  I  pushed  six  of  the  small  tables 
together,  making  one  large  one,  and  the  party  sat 
down  indiscriminately.  I  made  an  excuse  for  my 
presence  by  being  very  active  with  the  coffee  and 
sandwiches,  and  while  the  kaffee  klatsch  was  in  full 
swing  found  an  opportunity  to  make  my  apologies  to 
Miss  Pritchett  for  my  lack  of  receptivity  over  the 
telephone. 

"You  see,"  I  explained  in  mitigation  of  my  offense, 
"Helen  was  the  last  person  in  the  world  I  could  im- 
agine doing  this  sort  of  thing,  so  I  took  it  for  granted 
that  you  had  got  the  wrong  number." 

144 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

"You're  not  the  first  husband  who  has  been  sur- 
prised in  that  way  recently,"  she  retorted.  "  Husbands 
seem  to  be  a  little  incredulous.  Maybe  that's  why  they 
elected  me  chairman — because  I'm  unencumbered." 

"You  ought  to  round  up  a  couple  of  thousand  hus- 
bands and  let  them  see  what  you're  doing  here — it's 
great  I"  said  I  warmly.  "It  might  start  the  husbands 
doing  something." 

Miss  Pritchett  nodded. 

"It's  a  pity  more  people  don't  know  the  response 
that  the  women  of  the  country  have  made,"  she  said. 
"It's  really  very  fine.  I  know  that  the  men  are  giving 
their  lives  and  their  fortunes  without  a  murmur,  but 
numerically  they  aren't  doing  as  much  as  the  women. 
If  you  look  around  you  the  chances  are  that  for  every 
man  you  know  here  in  New  York  who  is  really  doing 
something  for  the  war,  you  will  find  five  times  as  many 
women  doing  just  as  much.  The  number  of  women 
of  every  class  who  have  turned  to  and  helped  is  quite 
marvellous — and  it's  growing  bigger  every  day." 

"Splendid!"  I  exclaimed,  conscious  that  as  yet  I 
wasn't  one  of  the  men  who  had  done  anything.  "What 
are  they  doing?  What  do  you  think  is  the  most  im- 
portant thing  they  can  do?" 

"Well,"  she  replied,  "it  seems  to  me  that  in  the 
country  and  the  smaller  towns  food  conservation  is 
obviously  the  best  way  in  which  women  can  help. 
They  are  right  there  next  to  the  crops  and  know  how 

145 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

to  cook  and  preserve  them.  In  the  cities  I  should  say 
that  canteen  work,  like  this,  was  the  most  important, 
and  next  to  it  social  work  in  and  around  the  camps. 
Of  course,  if  there  isn't  any  camp  near  by  and  the  city 
is  off  the  route  of  the  troop-trains,  the  women  had  better 
do  general  Red  Cross  or  Y.  W.  C.  A.  work,  assist  the 
Food  Administration,  or  prepare  themselves  for  clerical 
jobs.  Most  of  the  women  here  are  helping  in  the  food 
conservation  campaign,  are  liable  to  be  called  for 
canteen  duty  any  time,  day  or  night,  and  are  doing 
some  other  regular  work  besides.  Mrs.  Highbilt,  for 
example,  is  indefatigable." 

"Incredible!  "I  muttered. 

"It's  true,  nevertheless,"  answered  Miss  Pritchett. 
"You  can't  tell  who  is  going  to  be  the  most  useful 
person  either  or  where  you  are  going  to  find  the  finest 
qualities.  Would  you  believe  that  Anna  Highbilt  was 
the  most  effective  canvasser  we  had  in  our  district  in 
getting  signatures  for  food  cards?  Well,  she  was  I 
And  she  took  more  abuse  than  any  one  of  us !" 

"Abuse?" 

"Yes,  abuse.  Do  you  think  it  was  all  like  taking 
candy  from  children?  Not  much!  I  was  actually 
put  out  of  five  houses.  In  one  instance  the  'lady  of 
the  house' — her  name  was  Krauskopf,  by  the  way 
— when  she  heard  what  I  was  after,  yelled  over  the 
banisters:  'Throw  her  out!  Slam  the  door  in  her 
face!'  Any  number  of  them  made  themselves  very 

146 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

disagreeable.  One  fat  old  German  wished  to  know  if 
I  expected  him  to  go  without  food  so  that  his  relatives 
could  be  killed  more  easily  by  Yankee  soldiers.  I 
told  him  it  was  a  pity  he  wasn't  back  in  Germany 
himself,  he  wouldn't  be  so  fat  and  we  wouldn't  have 
to  worry  over  how  much  he  ate !  You'd  be  surprised, 
too,  at  the  number  of  women  who  sent  down  word 
that  they  'weren't  interested.'  Perhaps  they  didn't 
actually  send  that  word,  but  that  was  what  came  back 
to  us.  Maybe  it  was  just  a  'stall'  on  the  part  of  the 
butler.  On  the  whole,  though,  it  was  quite  amusing 
the  consideration  we  all  got  from  the  men  ser- 
vants." 

"One  doesn't  expect  much  consideration  from  them," 
I  agreed. 

"I  think  there  are  probably  two  reasons  for  their 
change  of  heart,"  said  Miss  Pritchett.  "In  the  first 
place  the  able-bodied  ones  that  haven't  gone  to  the 
front  are  rather  ashamed  of  themselves,  and  want  to 
show  that  their  sympathies  are  with  the  Allies;  and 
in  the  second  place  I  think  that  the  attitude  of  ser- 
vants is  changing,  anyway.  Good  places  aren't  as 
easy  to  find  as  formerly.  At  least  twenty  per  cent  of 
my  friends  have  given  up  housekeeping  this  winter. 
I  suppose  you  read  about  the  woman  who  discharged 
her  entire  force  because  they  refused  to  sign  the  ad- 
ministration's pledge-cards  when  she  asked  them  to?" 

"Yes,  I  did,"  I  answered.  "If  the  war  has  less- 
147 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

ened  the  tyranny  of  the  kitchen  it  has  done  some- 
thing for  us,  anyhow." 

"It's  done  more  than  that,"  she  asserted.  "Look 
over  at  that  table.  Do  you  think  that  those  women 
over  there  knew  of  each  other's  existence  before  war 
was  declared?  They  didn't.  You're  a  friend  of  Mrs. 
Highbilt,  I  know.  Well,  so  am  I — now.  Her  entire 
world  consisted  simply  of  her  own  social  circle,  most 
of  the  members  of  which  had  incomes  of  over  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  a  year — a  scattering  of  young 
men — 'parlor  snakes/  you  know — drawing-room  singers 
and  artistic  people  generally  who  wanted  her  patron- 
age, and  the  expensive  men  dressmakers,  jewellers, 
and  tradesmen  with  whom  she  dealt.  She's  told  me 
so  herself.  She  hadn't  the  remotest  idea  whether  eggs 
ought  to  be  twenty-five  cents  or  a  dollar  and  a  quarter 
a  dozen.  As  far  as  that  goes,  I'm  not  sure  she  does 
now.  But  she'll  know  soon  enough,  or  I'll  be  very 
much  mistaken.  Anna  Highbilt  to-day  is  getting 
twice  the  fun  out  of  life  that  she  ever  did  before,  be- 
cause, although  she's  working  twice  as  hard,  she's 
doing  something  real.  I  don't  suppose  she  ever  got 
up  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  before  in  her  life. 
When  you  come  to  think  of  it,  though,  it  isn't  very 
much  more  of  a  strain  on  one's  constitution  to  get  up 
at  four  than  it  is  to  sit  up  until  four,  and  she  has  done 
that  often  enough  playing  bridge." 

Over  at  the  improvised  breakfast-table  the  canteen 
148 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

volunteers  were  chattering  away  very  much  as  if  they 
were  at  an  afternoon  tea. 

"Anna  Highbilt  isn't  the  only  one,  either.  You 
know  most  women  really  haven't  had  a  chance.  You 
can't  blame  them  for  being  ineffective  and  having 
what  men  think  is  a  narrow  point  of  view  when  they've 
never  had  any  contact  with  people.  I  don't  know 
whether  you're  going  to  vote  for  woman  suffrage  on 
November  6 " 

"I  am!"  I  hastened  to  assure  her. 

"That's  good,"  answered  Miss  Pritchett.  "I  hope 
you'll  march  in  the  parade,  too.  But  let  me  give  you 
an  illustration  of  what  getting  out  and  mixing  with 
other  women  has  done  for  some  of  them.  This  is  a 
true  story.  There's  a  very  wealthy  woman  here  in 
New  York  who,  when  the  war  broke  out,  made  up  her 
mind  she  wanted  to  do  something  for  the  country. 
She  belonged  to  Anna  Highbilt's  class — of  course  I'm 
not  referring  to  Anna.  This  woman  asked  to  be  put 
on  a  committee  engaged  in  some  active  work,  and  she 
was  made  chairman  of  her  local  unit.  I  won't  tell  you 
what  line  of  activity  it  was,  because  I  don't  want  to 
identify  her  any  more  specifically,  although  what  I  am 
going  to  tell  you  is  entirely  to  her  credit.  She  threw 
into  the  job  all  the  energy  and  executive  ability  that 
made  her  what  they  used  to  call  a  'society  leader.' ' 

Miss  Pritchett  laughed  softly.  Her  laughter  was 
contagious. 

149 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"I  note,"  I  commented,  "that  you  use  the  verb  in 
the  past  tense." 

"Yes,"  said  Miss  Pritchett.  "I  don't  think  we 
shall  hear  very  much  about  'society  leaders'  in  the 
future.  Well,  as  I  was  saying,  this  woman  had  an 
enormous  amount  of  vitality.  She  was  capable, 
rather  aggressive,  and  I'm  afraid  had  a  rather  exag- 
gerated idea  of  her  own  importance.  Under  her  were 
a  committee  of  about  a  dozen  men  and  women.  They 
were  not  'society  leaders.'  They  were  just  plain  peo- 
ple who  were  making  a  good  many  sacrifices  to  do  the 
work  in  hand.  Everything  seemed  to  be  going  along 
pretty  well  until  one  day  I  received  a  telephone  mes- 
sage asking  if  I  would  see  the  committee  if  they  called. 
Naturally,  I  was  rather  surprised,  but  I  fixed  an  hour, 
and  that  afternoon  the  entire  committee,  with  the 
exception  of  the  lady  I  speak  of,  came  to  my  house. 
It  appeared  that  they  couldn't  stand  their  chairman 
another  minute.  She  meant  well,  they  said,  but  she 
was  overbearing,  inconsiderate,  inefficient,  and  well — 
either  she  must  retire  or  they  would  resign  in  a  body. 
I  saw  that  they  meant  business.  I  asked  them  to 
give  me  twenty-four  hours.  Then  I  telephoned  to 
this  woman  and  made  an  appointment  with  her  for 
the  following  morning." 

"Not  very  pleasant  for  you,"  I  ventured. 

"Pleasant?  I'd  rather  have  gone  'over  the  top* 
and  across  No  Man's  Land  and  tried  to  cut  my  way 

150 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

through  twenty  feet  of  barbed  wire,"  declared  Miss 
Pritchett,  "than  tackle  that  particular  woman  in  her 
own  drawing-room.  But  I  made  up  my  mind  that  it 
was  up  to  me.  The  butler  showed  me  in  and  I  sat  on 
the  corner  of  a  Louis  XVI  bergere,  feeling  very  much, 
I  imagine,  as  Charlotte  Corday  must  have  on  her  way 
to  the  guillotine.  Presently  my  lady  swept  in.  She 
was  arrayed  in  a  new  tailor-made  gown  cut  a  la  mill- 
taire,  and  was  evidently  just  on  the  point  of  going 
out  on  the  work  of  her  committee,  for  her  motor  was 
at  the  door  and  she  had  some  papers  in  her  hand.  I 
suppose  she  thought  I  was  there  to  congratulate 
her  on  making  a  good  job  of  it,  for  she  nearly  fell 
all  over  me  in  her  enthusiasm.  However,  I  wasn't 
going  to  put  her  at  a  disadvantage  by  any  false  pre- 
tenses. 

"Without  giving  her  a  chance  to  sit  down,  I  said: 

'Miss ,  I  have  come  here  to  say  to  you  the  most 

unpleasant  things,  probably,  that  one  woman  has  ever 
had  to  say  to  another.  There  is  nothing  personal 
about  it,  and  in  a  way  that  makes  it  all  the  worse. 
What  I  have  to  say  is  going  to  be  said  in  cold  blood.' 
She  turned  white  and  drew  back.  I  could  see  the 
effect  of  my  words  was  as  if  I  had  struck  her  in  the 
face.  She  didn't  understand,  but  she  was  horribly 
hurt. 

"  'It's  going  to  be  very  hard/  I  continued.    'Shall 
I  tell  you  or  not?' 

151 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"She  hesitated,  then  gripped  the  back  of  the  chair 
in  front  of  her  and  said:  'Go  ahead.' 

"  'Miss /  I  went  on  in  a  perfectly  matter-of- 
fact  way,  'the  men  and  women  on  your  committee 
have  come  to  me  and  said  certain  things.  I  don't 
know  whether  they  are  true  or  not.  I  leave  that  to 
you.  It  isn't  a  question  of  anything  except  getting 
the  work  done.  They  say  that  you  are — '  and  then  I 
went  ahead  and  let  her  have  it,  using  the  exact  lan- 
guage of  the  different  members  of  her  committee.  It 
was  pretty  bad.  I  had  never  done  anything  like  it  be- 
fore, and  when  I  got  through  I  found  myself  quite 
weak. 

"Miss stood  behind  her  chair,  getting  whiter 

and  whiter.  When  I  had  concluded  she  swallowed 
once  or  twice,  bit  her  lips,  then  straightened  up  and 
said:  'Miss  Pritchett,  it  hasn't  been  pleasant  for  me 
to  hear  these  things,  but  I  want  to  thank  you  for 
coming,  and  I  don't  blame  the  committee  a  bit  for 
complaining  of  me.  I  can  see  now  that  I  was  every- 
thing that  they  have  said  I  was.  I  haven't  any  reason 
for  asking  to  remain  as  chairman,  but  I  have  put  my 
hand  to  this  plough  and  I  don't  want  to  turn  back. 
I  believe  I  am  capable  of  handling  it  right.  I  don't 
think  that  the  fault  lies  so  much  in  what  I've  done  as 
in  the  way  I've  done  it.  Whether  I  stay  or  ncA  I 
shall  go  to  every  man  and  woman  on  that  committee 
and  make  a  personal  apology,  and  I  hope  that  you  and 

152 


MY   WIFE   AND   OTHERS 

they  will  be  willing  to  give  me  another  chance.  If  you 
are,  I  promise  you  that  there  shall  be  no  ground  for 
any  further  complaint/'1 

"By  George  I"  I  exclaimed.    "A  real  person." 

"Yes/'  agreed  Miss  Pritchett.  "A  very  fine  per- 
son— one  of  the  very  finest  in  this  city.  She  did  it,  too, 
and  to-day  there  isn't  a  committee  doing  any  better 
work  than  hers." 

"I  suppose,"  I  hazarded,  "that  your  friend  would 
have  gone  on  feeling  and  acting  as  if  she  were  the 
whole  cheese  and  antagonizing  everybody  for  the  rest 
of  her  life  if  the  war  hadn't  given  her  this  chance  to 
find  out  just  where  she  stood." 

"Exactly.  And  all  her  genuine  administrative 
capacity  and  vitality  would  have  been  thrown  away. 
Now  it  is  being  utilized  in  a  good  cause.  She's  a 
social  leader  in  the  real  sense,  instead  of  being  a  society 
leader." 

"Long  Island  troop-train  coming  in  in  five  minutes 
on  track  nineteen!"  shouted  the  assistant  station- 
master  from  the  doorway. 

The  party  at  the  table  sprang  to  their  feet  and 
pushed  back  their  chairs.  While  the  women  hurried 
toward  the  gate  I  helped  fill  the  canisters  with  coffee 
and  put  them  on  the  trucks.  Then  I  joined  my  wife 
and  Miss  Pritchett  on  the  lower  platform.  Already 
there  was  a  little  throng  of  people  waiting  for  the 
train  to  come  in;  fathers  and  mothers,  sisters  and 

153 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

sweethearts,  who  had  secured  permission  to  say 
good-by  to  the  men  as  they  passed  through.  While 
we  had  been  up-stairs  in  the  restaurant  waiting,  ad- 
ditional supplies  had  been  brought  down  to  the  lower 
level,  so  that  now  there  were  several  tables  of  fruit 
and  sandwiches,  and  an  equal  number  of  canisters 
of  hot  coffee.  Every  moment  the  platform  became 
more  crowded,  and  I  perceived  the  advantage  of  hav- 
ing the  canteen  workers  in  uniform.  One  little  old 
man  particularly  attracted  my  attention,  he  was  so 
eager  for  the  train  to  arrive.  He  could  not  have  been 
more  than  sixty-five,  but  he  was  evidently  suffering 
from  rheumatism,  for  he  walked  with  difficulty  and 
his  white  hair  made  him  look  much  older.  I  chatted 
with  him  for  a  moment  and  he  told  me  that  he  had 
come  to  bid  good-by  to  his  only  son  whose  name,  like 
that  of  my  own  boy,  was  Jack.  I  should  have  learned 
more  had  not  a  distant  whistle  indicated  the  approach 
of  the  train,  and  the  old  man  hobbled  off  as  fast  as 
he  could  without  any  particular  idea  of  where  he  was 
going. 

"Stand  back!    Stand  back!" 

Out  of  the  shadows  flashed  a  white  light,  and  amid 
the  thunder  of  steel  against  steel  the  heavy  train 
emerged  from  the  tunnel  and  slowly  came  to  a  stop 
beside  the  platform.  Immediately  the  windows  were 
thrown  up  and  the  heads  of  the  boys  appeared,  look- 
ing eagerly  out.  The  crowd  surged  toward  them,  each 

154 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

expecting  to  recognize  instantly  the  person  he  or  she 
was  looking  for.  But  at  first  all  were  grievously  dis- 
appointed. 

"What  regiment  are  you?"  called  out  a  man's 
voice  from  the  crowd. 

"The  Three  Hundred  and  th,"  answered  a 

curly-headed  lad,  hanging  half-way  out  of  the  window. 
"What  place  is  this — Jersey  City  or  New  York ?  Gee, 
smell  the  coffee!" 

There  was  another  rumbling,  another  shrieking  of 
brakes,  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  same  platform 
slid  in  another  train  likewise  full  of  soldiers — fifteen 
hundred  in  all — so  many  that  they  could  not  be  al- 
lowed to  leave  the  cars.  In  a  moment  the  canteen 
women  were  hurrying  from  window  to  window,  filling 
cups  and  handing  up  sandwiches  and  fruit.  There 
was  no  delay.  The  boys  had  their  cups  ready  and  the 
women  filled  them  from  pitchers  drawn  from  the  coffee- 
canisters.  Usually  there  were  about  four  arms  pro- 
truding from  each  window  at  the  same  time  and  it 
took  but  a  moment  to  empty  the  pitchers  and  the 
trays  of  food  which  the  women  lifted  up.  There  were 
eight  car-loads  in  each  train,  which  allowed  two 
women  to  each  car,  but  as  each  one  held  a  hundred 
half-famished  rookies  the  work  was  not  easy.  More- 
over, as  fast  as  they  had  drained  one  tin  cup  of  coffee 
and  devoured  a  couple  of  sandwiches  and  a  banana, 
they  were  ready  for  a  second,  and  after  that  for  a 

155 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

third  round.  I  saw  Helen  hand  one  stalwart  Irish 
lad  five  cups  of  coffee  and  thirteen  sandwiches  by 
actual  count. 

Meantime  most  of  the  relatives  and  friends  had 
found  the  fellows  they  were  looking  for  and  were  giv- 
ing them  all  the  latest  news  from  home  and  listening 
to  the  gossip  of  the  camp.  Here  and  there  a  rookie, 
replete  and  happy,  stuck  his  feet  upon  the  opposite 
seat  and  burst  into  song  regardless  of  his  auditors. 
Others  began  to  play  cards  and  some  endeavored  to 
sleep.  But  most  of  those  who  had  had  no  one  come  to 
bid  them  good-by  began  to  ask  the  women  to  buy  them 
post-cards  at  the  news-stands  and  to  take  messages 
for  then*  families  to  be  delivered  by  telephone.  I  saw 
Anna  Highbilt  with  a  pad  of  paper  in  one  hand  and  a 
pencil  in  the  other  standing  beneath  a  crowded  win- 
dow, trying  to  jot  down  half  a  dozen  messages  at  the 
same  time. 

"Tell  my  mother,  please,  ma'am — Orchard  3193 — 
that's  the  drug-store  on  the  corner,  but  they'll  send 
over  for  her — you  tell  her  I'm  fine — oh,  fine! — 
and " 

"Say,  missus,  while  he's  tryin'  to  think  of  some- 
thing else,  put  down  my  girl  for  me,  won't  you?  Miss 
Sadie  O'Connor — she's  a  saleslady  at  Lord  &  Taylor's 
— wait  a  minute,  Jim! — you  can  get  her  between 
twelve  and  one  at  the  noon  hour.  Tell  her  I'd  sure 
have  let  her  know  about  me  coming  through  if  they'd 

156 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

only  told  us  long  enough  in  advance.  Tell  her  for  me 
I'll  bring  her  home  something  fine  from  Berlin.  Tell 
her  be  sure  to  write " 

"I  want  you  should  tell  my  mother  I  am  wearing 
her  sweater,"  breaks  in  the  man  from  Orchard 
Street. 

"Shut  up,  you  big  stiff !  Wait  till  I  get  through  I" 
protests  the  other. 

Before  the  tactful  Anna  can  decide  which  gentle- 
man is  entitled  to  priority  a  soft-eyed,  olive-skinned 
Italian  thrusts  his  head  between  them. 

"You  taka  a  message  for  me  please,  lady?  My 
broth'  she  work  in  the  Banca  Romano — Numero 
Cinque  Cento — Via  Lafayetta.  You  tella  her  I  giva 
somet'ing  to  our  mother  for  her  bambino." 

"Whose  bambino?"  inquires  Anna,  confused. 

"The  bambino  of  my  broth'  who  work  in  the  bank. 
I  giva  two  dollar  to  our  mother  for  the  bambino  for 
Christmas!" 

A  heavenly  smile  softens  his  face. 

"Grazie!    Grazie!    Lady!" 

Doubtless  had  he  been  upon  the  platform  he  would 
have  kissed  her  hands. 

"I'll  tell  him!"  Anna  assures  him,  putting  it  all 
down.  "Now,  is  there  anybody  else  who  wants  to 
send  a  message?" 

"Sure!  Oi  do!"  bawls  a  voice  from  the  depths  of 
the  car,  followed  by  a  huge  beaming  Irish  face.  "  Mrs. 

157 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Thomas  Sullivan,  64  Agnes  Street,  Omaha.  I  want 
to  send  her  one  of  thim  post-cards  wid  the  Woolworth 
Building  on  it." 

"Your  mother,  I  suppose?"  asks  Anna,  unthinking. 

"Me  mother  nuthin'!"  he  retorts  with  a  grin. 
"Sure  she's  me  sweetheart!  'Tis  a  widdy  she  is!" 

The  taking  of  messages  is  a  serious  business.  Once 
certain  that  there  is  anybody  who  will  really  under- 
take to  deliver  them  and  every  rookie  is  keen  to  take 
advantage  of  the  opportunity.  The  windows  are 
crowded  with  faces  each  anxious  for  his  turn  to  send 
some  farewell  word  to  the  person  dearest  or  nearest  to 
him.  Sometimes  it  is  sentimental;  more  often  jocular; 
frequently  only  informative  or  prosaic.  But  it  may 
be  the  last  message  ever  received  from  them  and  this 
invests  it  with  a  sacred  character.  While  the  women 
were  hard  at  work  noting  down  divers  communica- 
tions, I  saw  my  little  old  man  standing  at  the  foot  of 
the  iron  stab's  with  a  look  of  abject  misery  upon  his 
face.  I  was  on  the  point  of  inquiring  what  was  the 
matter  when  Miss  Pritchett  got  ahead  of  me. 

"My  boy!"  choked  the  little  old  man.  "I  can't 
find  him  here.  They  must  have  sent  him  somewhere 
else.  And  it's  the  only  chance  I'll  have  to  see  him 
before  he  sails  for  France !  What  can  I  do  ?  I  must 
bid  him  good-by.  He's  all  I've  got  in  the  world  I 
His  mother  died  fifteen  years  ago  and  I've  brought 
him  up  myself  just  as  I  knew  she  would  have  wanted. 

158 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

He's  the  best  boy  in  the  world.  If  I  could  only  touch 
him  once  more,  only  for  a  minute — just  to  feel  that 
he's  there,  it'd  be  all  I  want!" 

The  old  fellow  had  quite  lost  control  of  himself, 
and  I  could  see  Miss  Pritchett  giving  a  surreptitious 
dab  at  her  eyes  with  a  small  handkerchief. 

"We'll  see  what  we  can  do!"  she  said  encourag- 
ingly. "There  must  be  some  way  of  finding  him. 
What  regiment  does  he  belong  to  ?  " 

"The  th,"  sobbed  the  old  man.  "I  can't 

have  him  go  this  way.  It'd  break  his  heart  and  mine, 
too.  I  jest  want  to  put  my  arm  around  him  once  like 
I  used  to  do  when  he  was  a  little  boy." 

It  was  no  use,  I  was  already  feeling  for  my  own 
handkerchief.  Why  did  they  let  little  old  men  come 
around  to  bid  lost  boys  good-by?  Mrs.  Judge  Wad- 
bone  now  joined  the  group  and  from  her  we  learned 

that  the  • th  had  been  sent  through  to  Jersey  City. 

This  finished  the  old  fellow.  He  sat  down  on  the 
lowest  step  and  buried  his  head  in  his  hands.  Mrs. 
Supreme  Court  Wadbone  screwed  up  her  face  and  a 
large  tear  suddenly  appeared  upon  the  end  of  her 
Napoleonic  nose.  Obviously,  it  would  be  quite  im- 
possible for  our  old  friend  to  secure  at  this  late  hour 
a  permit  to  allow  him  to  meet  the  train  at  Jersey  City, 
even  if  he  could  get  there  hi  time  to  do  so.  The 
canteen  committee — including  the  male  member — 
gathered  helplessly  around  him  like  a  group  of  mourners 

159 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

at  a  funeral.  Suddenly  into  our  midst  was  wedged  the 
capable  figure  of  Anna  Highbilt. 

"What  are  all  you  ninnies  crying  about?"  she 
demanded. 

The  little  old  man  raised  his  head  despairingly. 

"If  I  could  only  just  touch  him  once,"  he  repeated. 
"He's  all  I've  got-  -" 

"You  see,"  I  explained  hurriedly,  for  I  didn't  want 
to  hear  any  more  about  that  boy,  "his  son's  regiment 
has  been  sent  across  to  Jersey  City  instead  of  here  as 
was  originally  intended.  He's  afraid  he  won't  have  a 
chance  to  see  him  before  he  sails." 

"And  he's  the  only  son  he's  got,"  sniffed  Mrs. 
Wadbone. 

"Not  see  him?  Of  course  he'll  see  him,  if  I  have 
to  charter  a  tug  or  a  special  train!"  declared  the  in- 
dignant Mrs.  Highbilt.  "I  know  the  commanding 
general — he's  dined  at  my  house  half  a  dozen  times — 
I'll  telephone  him  at  once.  Come  along,  old  man! 
You  come  right  along  with  me !  I  promise  you  you'll 
see  your  boy,  if  we  have  to  stop  the  transport  or  flag 
the  train." 

"Isn't  she  great!"  ejaculated  Miss  Pritchett. 

"Anna's  all  right!"  I  assented. 

And  the  last  we  saw  of  our  "social  leader"  she  was 
half  carrying  the  old  man  up  the  stairs  in  the  direction 
of  the  taxicab  stand.  I  heard  afterward  that  she  had 
managed  somehow  through  her  connections  in  Wash- 

160 


MY  WIFE  AND  OTHERS 

ington  to  give  the  old  fellow  his  longed-for  opportu- 
nity to  bid  his  son  good-by. 

It  was  after  eight  o'clock  before  the  troop-trains 
pulled  out.  Already  the  sunlight  was  pouring  through 
the  huge  studio-like  windows  of  the  station.  Weary 
but  exhilarated  from  the  consciousness  of  the  pleasure 
they  had  given  and  the  good  they  had  accomplished, 
the  thirty  women  of  the  canteen  climbed  up  the  iron 
staircase,  shook  hands  all  round,  and  bade  each  other 
good-by. 

"I  want  all  you  girls  to  dine  with  me  next  week 
—Friday,"  said  Anna.  "Is  it  a  date?" 

It  was ! 

I  had  a  queer  feeling  in  my  throat  as  I  tucked 
Helen's  arm  under  my  elbow  and  led  her  toward  the 
entrance.  Human  nature  was  a  pretty  fine  thing, 
after  all!  We  found  Miss  Pritchett  on  the  sidewalk 
and  offered  her  a  lift.  Near  Forty-fifth  Street  she 
asked  to  be  dropped  at  her  store. 

"Your  store!"  I  exclaimed. 

"Why,  yes,"  she  answered  calmly.  "Didn't  you 
know  that  I  was  'Lorette'?"  Then  she  laughed  and 
added:  "I  don't  want  to  mix  war  work  and  business, 
but  really  I  make  awfully  good  hats!" 

"I  bet  you  do !"  said  I,  wringing  her  hand. 


161 


MY  DAUGHTER 

"The  person  I  am  worrying  about  is  Margery!19 
Helen  confided  to  me  rather  anxiously  about  a  week 
after  our  return  to  New  York. 

"What's  the  matter  with  her?"  I  demanded,  not 
having  observed  anything  peculiar  about  my  daughter 
up  to  that  moment. 

"What  are  we  going  to  do  with  her?"  she  asked. 

"What  should  we  do  with  her?"  I  retorted.  "Can't 
she  take  care  of  herself?  Seems  to  me  there's  plenty 
for  all  of  us  to  do." 

My  wife  uttered  a  half-amused  but  plaintive  sigh. 

"Don't  you  understand?"  she  inquired  pathet- 
ically. "The  poor  child  was  'coming  out'  this  winter 
and  now  there  isn't  anything  for  her  to  come  out  into ! " 
and  she  handed  me  a  clipping  from  the  "society  notes" 
of  the  morning  paper. 

"Owing  to  the  war,"  it  read,  "the  regular  debutante 
assemblies  have  been  given  up  for  the  winter  season 
of  1917-1918." 

"Isn't  it  too  bad?"  she  exclaimed.  "Poor  Mar- 
gery! All  her  winter  simply  knocked  topsyturvy! 
Think  of  all  the  plans  we  made  for  her.  Why,  I  don't 
suppose  now  she  will  ever  come  out  at  all  1 " 

162 


MY  DAUGHTER 

I  handed  the  cutting  back  to  her  without  comment. 

"Well?"  said  my  wife  with  a  rising  inflection. 
"Don't  you  feel  sorry?" 

"No,"  I  retorted,  "I  can't  say  that  I  do.  "I  think 
the  whole  blooming  business  was  just  plain  rot.  Why 
should  she  want  to  'come  out'?  Frankly,  I'm  glad 
that  she  can't." 

My  wife  bit  her  lip.  I  suppose  I  was  a  little  brusquer 
than  the  occasion  demanded. 

"Really,  John!"  she  expostulated.  "I  think  you 
are  rather  unfeeling  about  it ! " 

Now,  I  did  not  regard  myself  as  unfeeling  at  all. 
I  have  always  looked  upon  myself  as  a  sympathetic 
and  indulgent  parent.  Indeed,  if  I  ever  desired  to 
secure  another  job  as  a  father  I  feel  confident  that 
both  my  wife  and  daughter  would  give  me  a  high  rec- 
ommendation for  good  manners,  obedience,  and  docil- 
ity. My  evenings,  Sundays,  and  check-book  have 
always  been  at  their  disposal.  I  have  chaperoned  my 
children  from  their  earliest  years  to  church,  the  thea- 
tre, the  circus,  to  ball-games,  and  the  races.  I  have 
played  Santa  Claus  at  Christmas  and  furnished  an 
unlimited  supply  of  eggs  and  rabbits  at  Easter.  I 
have  ordered  myself  humbly  and  reverently  to  them 
as  to  my  betters,  and  have  never  hurt  them  either  by 
word  or  deed.  But  for  all  that  I  have  never  exercised 
any  individual  discretion  in  the  bringing  up  of  Margery. 

I  had  always  been  devoted  to  her.  She  was  un- 
163 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

deniably  pretty,  reasonably  intelligent,  loving  and 
amenable,  and  an  object  of  distinct  interest  to  those 
of  the  opposite  sex  who  were  of  her  own  age  and 
whom  fortune  had  thrown  in  her  path. 

She  had  been  educated  at  the  best  schools  that  we 
could  find  in  the  city;  had  been  taught  sewing,  riding, 
drawing,  and  the  piano;  had  been  exercised  regularly 
at  a  gymnasium;  had  had  her  teeth  straightened  at 
an  expense  of  several  thousand  dollars;  had  taken 
courses  in  modern  music,  "art  movements"  and 
"bird  life"  in  Central  Park;  and  could  pour  tea  grace- 
fully and  talk  fluently  about  the  theatre,  opera,  and 
what  other  girls  of  her  own  age  were  doing. 

But  Margery,  with  all  her  amiability  of  character, 
could  not  make  a  cup  of  coffee,  knew  nothing  whatever 
about  housekeeping,  and,  although  she  had  taken 
sewing-lessons,  could  not  make  over  a  hat  or  a  last 
year's  dress.  I  doubt  if  she  had  ever  darned  a  stocking. 
Those  sewing-lessons  at  two  dollars  per  hour  consisted 
in  sitting  around  with  five  other  young  ladies  and 
doing  hemstitching  twice  every  week  for  three  months. 
She  had  never  learned  to  use  her  hands  and  had  never 
been  called  upon  to  do  anything  for  herself. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  daughters  of  men  of  my 
own  kind  have  been  brought  up  hitherto  with  the 
idea  that  life  was  going  to  be  a  long  joy-ride,  during 
which  one  or  more  men  would  endeavor  to  keep  them 
entertained  and  amused.  It  has  never  been  suggested 

164 


MY  DAUGHTER 

to  them  that  they  might  be  called  upon  to  take  care 
of  the  car. 

Helen  and  I  were  not  rich  in  the  latter-day  accep- 
tance of  the  term,  but  we  had  brought  up  our  daughter 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  her  an  admirable  chatelaine 
for  a  millionaire  and  totally  unfit  to  live  upon  a  moder- 
ate income.  She  had  been  brought  up  on  a  scale  (for 
two)  of  about  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  per  annum 
—that  is,  it  would  have  cost  her  husband,  if  they  had 
had  no  children,  about  that  sum  to  give  her  what  she 
was  used  to  and  what  we  were  giving  her  before  the 
war  hit  us.  It  would  have  taken  at  least  ten  thousand 
dollars  to  maintain  her — according  to  her  lights — in 
only  modest  comfort. 

Well,  Margery  is  a  dear  girl  and  she  is  my  daughter, 
but — I  sometimes  wondered  if  she  was  worth  it !  I  de- 
voutly hoped  that  some  young  gentleman  of  the  right 
sort  would  think  so  and  be  willing  to  back  up  his 
opinion. 

"I  don't  care!"  I  replied  stubbornly.  "I'm  not 
sorry.  I'm  glad.  Do  you  think  I  could  stand  for 
Margery  gadding  around  to  dances  after  you've  given 
up  your  motor  and  are  working  your  hands  off  making 
bandages  ?  It's  tune  she  began  to  take  life  seriously ! " 

"That  time  will  come  soon  enough,"  replied  my 
wife.  "I  don't  care  a  bit  for  what  the  war  has  done 
to  me!  It  doesn't  hurt  me  much  to  give  up  things. 
But  it's  different  with  a  girl  like  Margery.  She's 

165 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

young  and  pretty  and  well,  and  she  ought  to  be 
happy.  Dear  me,  if  she  doesn't  get  a  little  gayety 
now,  when  will  she  ever  get  it?  Besides,  she  won't 
know  anybody.  'Coming  out'  is  the  way  they  meet 
the  young  men " 

"Young  men!"  I  interrupted  sarcastically.  "There 
won't  be  any  young  men — worth  meeting." 

"Oh,  yes  there  will!"  she  answered.  "There  will 
be  plenty  who  haven't  gone  to  the  war  yet,  but  who, 
of  course,  are  going.  And  there  are  a  lot  who  are  too 
young  to  go." 

"And  too  old!"  I  interjected. 

Helen  looked  at  me  suspiciously.  I  had  always  been 
a  cynic,  but  I  had  never  realized  how  deeply  the  idea 
of  bringing  Margery  out  had  sunk  into  my  wife's  soul. 

From  the  time  that  Margery  had  first  been  put 
into  short  dresses  my  wife  had  made  elaborate  plans 
for  the  denouement  which  was  only  due  fifteen  years 
later.  I  had  no  quarrel  with  bringing  girls  out  in 
society.  I  suppose  that  essentially  my  quarrel  was 
with  society  itself.  A  girl  has  got  to  leave  the  nursery 
some  tune.  But  I  had  always  wanted  to  register  a  pro- 
test against  the  lavishness  and  expenditure  that  was 
made  incidental  to  this  perfectly  natural  transition 
from  the  schoolroom  to  the  drawing-room.  Wasn't  it 
calculated  to  make  any  young  girl,  no  matter  how  sim- 
ple or  sensible  theretofore,  put  a  false  value  on  mere 
money?  How  could  it  be  otherwise  when  practically 

166 


I 

MY  DAUGHTER 

every  mother  felt  obliged  to  make  her  daughter's 
"coming-out"  ball  a  grand  affair,  similar  in  every 
respect  to  the  entertainments  given  by  other  mothers 
whose  incomes  knew  no  limit? 

All  this  parade  of  luxury  and  wealth  tended  to 
frighten  off  the  serious-minded  young  fellows  who 
otherwise  might  have  become  interested.  The  very 
efforts  of  the  mother  to  marry  off  her  daughter  tended 
to  defeat  her  object,  surrounding  her,  as  she  did,  with 
a  veneered  wall  of  wealth  and  a  barrier  of  false  fashion. 
Indeed,  most  of  the  men  at  whose  heads  she  threw 
her  were  not  those  from  among  whom  she  would  want 
her  to  marry  or  who  themselves  had  any  idea  of 
getting  married.  More  often  than  not  they  were  either 
jaded  popinjays  and  "pet  cats"  who  year  by  year  got 
a  social  living  by  dancing  with  the  debutantes  and 
making  themselves  useful  to  the  mothers,  or  feature- 
less "dancing-men"  who  had  nothing  better  to  do 
than  go  to  balls. 

Only  last  year  a  friend  of  mine  who  wished  to  give 
an  evening-party  called  up  the  best  known  restaurateur 
on  Fifth  Avenue,  and  asked  whether  he  could  secure 
a  private  dining-room  for  some  night  in  January, 
February,  or  March.  Although  it  was  then  early  in 
October,  he  was  told  that  every  room  in  the  establish- 
ment was  already  engaged  for  every  night  during  the 
three  months !  The  reason  was  that  practically  every 
mother  of  every  daughter  who  was  about  to  make  her 

167 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

debut  into  society  had  entered  upon  a  campaign  to 
give  her  child  one  of  those  "good  times." 

Of  these  introductions  to  society  the  majority  might 
be  ordinary  enough  affairs  without  any  particular  dis- 
play, to  which  the  girl  invited  all  her  friends  of  the 
dancing  age,  and  where  the  guests  enjoyed  themselves 
in  a  simple  and  reasonable  way.  But  in  a  minority 
of  instances — yet  in  a  sufficient  number  to  tinge  the 
debutante  horizon  with  a  faint  yellow  glow  of  cynicism 
— these  dances  had  a  sordid  and  mercenary  aspect.  In 
the  larger  American  cities  parents  who  didn't  know  the 
ropes  or  weren't  quite  sure  of  their  place  even  availed 
themselves  of  press  agencies  and  professional  social 
steerers,  who  dictated  to  the  girl  the  names  of  those 
whom  she  must  ask  (whether  she  knew  them  or  not)  if 
she  expected  to  be  received  as  one  of  the  elect.  The 
"coming-out"  ball  was  not  given  in  the  home  of  the 
parents,  ostensibly  because  the  house  would  have  been 
too  small,  but  really  because,  as  the  whole  affair  was 
nothing  but  a  fake,  it  was  easier  to  induce  the  "right" 
young  people  to  go  to  a  restaurant.  The  snobbish 
young  sycophant  who  might  have  shied  at  going  to  a 
house  the  owners  of  which  he  did  not  know  could  be 
more  safely  lured  to  a  hired  hall  I 

Here  in  one  of  half  a  dozen  similar  rooms,  in  which 
half  a  dozen  similar  entertainments  were  going  on  at 
the  same  time,  the  girl,  and  her  mother  stood  in  a 
"gazabo"  of  potted  palms,  and  received  several  hun- 

168 


MY  DAUGHTER 

dred  properly  accredited  persons.  Many  of  these  were 
their  friends,  but  some,  at  least,  were  total  strangers 
— young  men  carried  on  the  lists  as  eligible  because 
their  families  were  in  The  Social  Radiator  and  girls 
whom  the  debutante  ought  to  have  known  even  if 
she  didn't.  For  six  or  seven  hours  this  curiously 
impersonal  mob  danced,  ate,  and  drank  by  virtue  of 
the  debutante's  father's  check-book,  and  she  was 
whirled  breathlessly  about  the  room  by  sleek-haired, 
sap-headed  young  "desirables"  who  "cut  in"  on  each 
other  with  shrewd  calculation,  while  the  utility  man 
in  the  orchestra  yelled,  whistled,  and  uttered  all 
the  noises  in  the  zoological  gamut  from  the  cry  of 
a  baby  to  the  more  appropriate  bray  of  a  donkey. 
At  half  after  four  or  five  the  exhausted  guests  de- 
parted, insisting  vociferously  that  they  had  had  a 
"perfectly  wonderful  time."  The  bewildered  victim 
of  this  barbaric  sacrifice  was  hustled  home,  put  in- 
stantly to  bed,  and  the  house  maintained  in  absolute 
silence  for  eight  or  ten  hours  in  order  that  she  might 
recover  sufficiently  to  go  to  another  jamboree  given 
in  the  same  room  in  the  same  restaurant  the  follow- 
ing night;  for,  having  given  one  of  these  delightful 
entertainments  herself  she  became  thereby  privi- 
leged to  attend  all  the  others  given  by  similar  unfor- 
tunates. 

"No,  Helen/'  I  repeated,   "you  can  thank  your 
stars  that  you  and  Margery  have  escaped  from  it  all. 

169 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

You  don't  see  the  side  of  it  that  I  do.  You're  too 
good  and  kind.  But  I'm  glad  it's  all  over  for  every- 
body." 

"Do  you  really  think  it  is  all  over?"  she  asked. 
"Dost  think,  John,  that  because  thou  art  virtuous 
the  young  shall  have  no  more  cakes  and  ale?" 

I  laughed. 

"Cakes  and  non-alcoholic  beverages — yes,"  I  an- 
swered. "But  no  more  petit-fours  and  champagne- 
cup.  Look  here,  Helen.  Hasn't  it  ever  occurred  to 
you  to  ask  yourself  why  the  daughters  of  the  rich 
should  assume  that  they  had  a  monopoly  of  amuse- 
ment? Why  should  you  sentimentalize  about  this 
particular  class  of  girls  when  the  youth  of  the  whole 
nation  has  got  to  suffer?  Don't  you  suppose  it's  going 
to  hit  'em  all  about  the  same?" 

"I  hadn't  really  thought  much  about  it,"  she  ad- 
mitted frankly.  "I  suppose  you're  right.  But  what 
are  we  going  to  do  about  Margery?" 

Had  we  only  known  it  we  need  not  have  concerned 
ourselves  particularly  about  that  young  lady.  After 
the  first  rush  of  getting  the  house  started  (during 
which  my  daughter  made  up  in  initiative  and  enthu- 
siasm what  she  lacked  in  knowledge  and  technic) 
she  had  relapsed  into  the  period  of  quasi-inactivity 
that  had  excited  the  solicitude  of  her  mother.  Then 
she  unexpectedly  announced  one  evening  out  of  a  clear 
sky  that  she  wanted  to  go  to  work. 

170 


MY  DAUGHTER 

"Go  to  work!"  said  her  mother.  "What  sort  of 
work?" 

"Oh,  almost  anything.  All  the  girls  are  doing  some- 
thing, you  know.  Clara  Smith  is  learning  telegraphy, 
and  Dot  George  is  studying  to  be  a  trained  nurse; 
two  of  the  others  are  driving  ambulance  supply 
wagons  in  France;  a  lot  are  going  to  canvass  in  the 
food  campaign  or  are  doing  administrative  work  of 
one  sort  or  another — everybody's  busy,  and  I  want 
to  be!" 

"Good!"  I  exclaimed.  "How  about  going  over 
to  nurse?" 

"It  would  kill  her!"  announced  Helen.  "She  isn't 
nearly  strong  enough!  What's  even  more  important 
she's  not  old  enough.  I'm  perfectly  willing  to  have 
Margery  do  anything  reasonable  and  necessary,  but 
there's  a  lot  of  nonsense  about  this  business  of  send- 
ing girls  to  France!  Imagine  letting  Polly  Pratt  go 
over  to  Paris  to  drive  an  ambulance !  I'd  hate  to  be 
a  blesse  with  her  pounding  me  over  the  cobblestones ! 
She  never  drove  that  ambulance,  as  a  matter  of  fact. 
When  she  got  there  they  wouldn't  let  her.  She's  been 
banging  around  Paris  ever  since." 

"She  had  a  fine  going-away  party  at  Sherry's,  any- 
how!" I  said.  "Don't  you  remember  the  full-page 
picture  of  her  in  her  costume?" 

"She's  had  a  good  many  more  parties  over  there 
at  the  Ritz,  they  tell  me !"  added  Helen. 

171 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"Don't  worry!"  smiled  Margery.  "I  don't  want 
to  go  to  Paris  or  to  drive  an  ambulance.  I  haven't 
any  romantic  ambitions  and  I'd  be  scared  to  death 
to  cross  the  ocean.  I  just  want  to  work — that's  all — 
do  something  right  here  at  home.  It's  partly  because 
I  feel  I  ought  to  and  it's  partly  because  I  haven't  any- 
thing else  to  do." 

"Any  ideas?"  I  inquired. 

"We-ell,"  she  answered,  "I've  always  wished  that 
I  could  do  stenography  and  typewriting.  There  must 
be  a  lot  of  stenographers  needed  just  now  by  the 
government,  and  to  take  the  places  of  men  who  have 
either  volunteered  or  been  drafted.  I  think  I  could 
do  it.  Anyhow,  I  could  try.  There  are  plenty  of  good 
schools." 

"Fine!"  I  said.  "Great  idea!  Why  don't  you 
start  right  in  to-morrow  ?  " 

"I'm  going  to,"  she  announced  calmly. 

"Where?"  we  shouted  in  unison. 

"Pecker's  Business  College  on  One  Hundred  and 
Seventy-first  Street." 

"Great  heavens!"  I  cried  aghast.  "Why,  that's 
a  hundred  blocks  from  here — five  miles!  How  are 
you  going  to  get  there  in  the  first  place?" 

"In  the  street-cars,  of  course." 

"Margery!"  cried  Helen,  "I  can't  have  you  cruis- 
ing all  over  New  York  in  public  conveyances.  It  isn't 
the  thing  at  all  for  a  young  girl — don't  forget 

172 


MY  DAUGHTER 

you  haven't  any  maid.  Some  man  might  speak  to 
you!" 

"I've  thought  of  that,"  answered  my  ewe  lamb.  "I 
shall  ostentatiously  carry  a  copy  of  The  New  Republic 
or  The  Atlantic  Monthly;  that  ought  to  keep  triflers  at 
a  distance." 

"Let  her  go,"  said  I.  "Isn't  that  about  as  good  a 
way  for  her  to  'come  out*  as  any?" 

It  is  the  youth  of  America  who  are  going  to  win 
this  war,  if  it  is  to  be  won;  and  no  one  knows  it  better 
than  they.  You  can  see  it  in  their  faces  all  about  you. 
The  silly  little  drone  of  yesterday  is  the  busy  worker 
of  to-day.  The  change  is  so  astonishing  that  it 
challenges  credulity.  How  can  it  be  possible  that 
girls  brought  up  in  the  lavish,  idle,  and  selfish  fashion 
of  our  time  can  almost  overnight  have  been  trans- 
formed into  serious-minded  young  women  intent  upon 
carrying  on  their  share  of  the  nation's  work?  It  is, 
nevertheless,  true.  Almost  without  exception  Mar- 
gery's friends  are,  as  they  express  it,  "doing  some- 
thing for  the  war."  Well,  the  war  is  doing  something 
for  them,  has  done  it  already.  It  has  brought  out 
qualities  too  fine  to  be  destroyed  even  by  the  mad 
parental  effort  to  furnish  them  with  amusement,  give 
them  that  much-heralded  "good  time."  It  must  be 
that  underneath  her  superficiality,  her  pertness,  her 
egotism,  and  her  face-powder,  there  is  in  the  Amer- 
ican girl  a  spirit  which  not  even  the  snobbery,  the 

173 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

sham,  and  the  artificial  excitement  of  metropolitan 
social  life  can  efface. 

For  Margery  and  her  set  there  are  practically  no 
amusements  now.  There  are  no  dances,  no  dinners, 
no  "week-ends."  Occasionally  one  or  more  of  her 
boy  friends  get  a  day's  leave  and  we  go  to  the  theatre, 
but  the  girls  who  come  with  us  wear  their  last  year's 
dresses,  and  the  boys  are  all  in  uniform.  There  is, 
besides,  a  simplicity  about  their  relations  that  is  quite 
new  to  Helen  and  me.  In  fact  as  1  have  written  some 
of  the  preceding  paragraphs  my  conscience  has  pricked 
me  a  little,  for  more  than  one  of  the  young  fellows  I 
have  stigmatized  as  "sapheads"  has  turned  out  to  be 
an  efficient  officer,  and  his  manners  have  become 
wholly  unrecognizable. 

I  suppose  the  dearth  of  males  is  rather  hard  on 
the  girls.  But  it  will  be  a  good  chance  for  them  to 
find  out  before  marriage  who  are  the  slackers,  instead 
of  waiting  until  afterward.  Meantime  they  will  be 
learning  to  cook,  sew,  keep  house,  and  nurse — in  prep- 
aration for  the  home-coming  of  the  right  kind  of  men 
— instead  of  wasting  their  time  as  they  used  to  do  at 
theatres,  roof-gardens,  and  at  dances  with  boys  whom 
in  their  hearts  they  have  usually  despised.  The  war 
will  drive  away  all  the  fakes  and  fortune-hunters,  and 
will  introduce  our  daughters  into  the  best  society  for 
us — the  society  of  the  men  who  are  going  to  save  and 
then  govern  the  country. 

174 


VI 
MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"We  have  shared  the  incommunicable  experience  of  war;  we 
have  felt,  we  still  feel,  the  passion  of  life  to  its  top." 

The  Long  Island  train  is  slowly  hitching  its  way 
over  endless  level  fields  of  corn  stubble  and  cabbages. 
You  cannot  see  much  of  the  stubble,  for  the  rain  has 
turned  the  rich  earth  into  a  brown  ooze,  which  in  the 
hollows  has  expanded  into  wide  soup-like  puddles,  and 
the  cabbages  look  like  the  green  bathing-caps  of 
a  multitude  of  lady  swimmers  among  the  stalks. 
Outside  the  drops  pelt  viciously  against  the  windows 
of  the  smoking-car,  and  dart  down  toward  the  sashes 
in  quick  streaks.  Inside  the  air  is  thick  with  cigarette 
smoke,  the  fumes  of  which  do  not  disguise  a  lurking 
odor  of  rubber  and  damp  wool.  We  are  taking  four 
hours  to  do  a  schedule  trip  of  two,  and  the  boys  in 
khaki,  returning  to  camp  after  forty-eight  hours'  leave, 
though  good-natured,  are  not  complimentary. 

In  the  seat  in  front  of  me  a  chubby  red-faced  youth 
is  recounting  some  experience  of  the  night  before.  I 
cannot  hear  all  of  it,  but  it  seems  to  end  in  an 
encouraging  manner: 

175 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"  Gee ! "  I  says,  sarcastic  like.  "  Is  that  so  ?  Well," 
I  says,  "y°u  just  better  run  along  home,  girlie,  where 
you  belong.  This  ain't  no  place  for  kids ! "  I  says. 

"Oh,  Gee!"  echoes  his  companion  sympathetically, 
shifting  his  gum,  and  then  ruminatively:  "Ain't  they 
a  pest!" 

There  is  a  card  game  going  on  across  the  way,  and 
up  at  the  end  of  the  car  a  mouth-organ  contests  su- 
premacy with  three  "barber  chord"  artists.  There 
is  a  lot  of  slouching  up  and  down  the  aisle  and  some 
cheerful  scrapping,  which  at  times  causes  me  to  make 
myself  as  small  as  possible.  It  is  not  uninteresting,  but 
two  hours  are  likely  to  be  more  than  enough  of  it.  I 
try  to  read  the  paper,  but  the  smoke  makes  my  eyes 
smart  and  I  light  my  pipe  in  self-defense.  I  wonder 
why  on  earth  I  ever  went  to  the  unnecessary  trouble 
of  going  down  to  visit  Jack  at  his  camp,  instead  of 
waiting  for  him  to  come  to  New  York.  Really,  the 
smoke  is  impossible!  I  speculate  as  to  the  proba- 
bility of  getting  an  express  back  to  the  city  at  an  early 
hour. 

The  train  halts  at  a  road  crossing,  decorated  by  a 
few  reeling  sign-boards,  and  conveniently  adjacent  to 
a  saloon.  I  can  hear  the  panting  of  the  engine.  Evi- 
dently they  are  taking  on  water — or  beer — or  some- 
thing. Then  the  door  opens  behind  me,  and  there 
is  a  perceptible  stiffening  of  backs — as  the  men  turn 
round. 

176 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"Hello,  father!"  cries  Jack,  clapping  me  on  the 
shoulder.  "I  got  'permish'  to  come  down  the  road 
and  pick  you  up.  How  are  you?" 

The  chubby  youth  has  risen  and  now  stands  at 
salute. 

"Take  this  seat,  sir,"  says  he.  "Me  and  my  pal 
can  move  up  front.  You  can  turn  her  back — this 
way." 

"Thanks!"  returns  Captain  John  Stanton,  Junior, 
taking  possession  of  the  seat,  and  swinging  it  over  to 
face  me,  as  if  he  had  spent  a  lifetime  as  the  recipient 
of  attentions  from  a  military  orderly.  I  watch  him 
in  wonder.  There  is  a  self-possession,  an  ease  of 
manner,  an  assurance  about  him  that  had  been  non- 
existent ten  months  before,  and  to  which  I  am  unable 
to  accustom  myself. 

We  had  been  too  much  excited  at  seeing  him  that 
first  evening  of  our  return  home  quite  to  grasp  the 
transformation  he  had  undergone;  but,  now  that  I 
could  really  look  him  over,  he  didn't  seem  to  be  the 
same  Jack  at  all;  there  wasn't  a  trace  of  the  original 
animal  left.  He  had  a  new  body  and  apparently  he 
had  gained  a  new  soul.  I  suppose  the  mere  uniform 
might  have  tended  to  create  this  effect,  but  with  Jack 
the  uniform  was  the  merest  incident.  He  had  lost 
about  twelve  pounds,  looked  four  inches  taller,  and 
in  place  of  his  habitual  slouchiness  had  acquired  an 
erect  and  almost  graceful  carriage. 

177 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Moreover,  instead  of  calling  me  Dad,  Old  Top, 
Governor,  or  Boss,  he  now  addressed  me  as  Father, 
with  an  occasional  Sir.  I  confess  that  in  his  previous 
state  of  existence  any  such  formality  would  have  been 
out  of  place.  Before,  he  had  always  gone  round  whis- 
tling, never  answering  a  question  seriously,  and  ap- 
parently never  thinking  about  anything.  This  grave 
youth  was  an  utter  stranger  to  me,  and,  at  first,  I  felt 
the  awkwardness  engendered  by  his  strangeness. 

The  last  time  I  had  visited  Jack  in  Cambridge, 
prior  to  our  return  to  New  York  in  the  autumn  of  1917, 
had  been  in  the  November  of  his  sophomore  year,  the 
occasion  being  a  note  from  the  dean  of  Harvard  College, 
informing  me  that  the  enthusiasm  roused  in  my  son 
by  a  certain  victory  upon  the  football-field  had  so 
stimulated  his  desire  for  mural  decoration  that  he  had 
suspended  a  necklace  of  seven  or  eight  glistening  white 
water-pitchers  from  the  cupola  of  Harvard  Hall. 

He  had  previously  floundered  along  in  the  lower 
third  of  his  form  at  Groton,  occasionally,  under  the 
impetus  of  parental  admonition,  indulging  in  a  rocket- 
like  ascent  to  second  or  third  place,  from  which  in- 
evitably, at  the  end  of  a  month  or  two,  he  descended 
like  the  proverbial  stick.  At  home  his  chief  occupa- 
tions had  been  coloring  a  large  meerschaum  pipe  and 
singing  Hawaiian  love-songs  through  his  nose  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  ukulele. 

Once  he  had  passed  his  college  exams,  any  thought 
178 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

of  intellectual  labor  seemed  to  have  departed  from 
him;  and,  to  my  astonishment,  I  began  to  hear  him 
spoken  of  as  quite  an  extraordinary  eccentric  dancer. 
His  chief  form  of  amusement  seemed  to  be  going  to 
the  theatre  in  Boston  with  a  couple  of  his  chums  and 
then  motoring  by  night  to  New  York,  arriving  at  our 
house  about  breakfast-time,  and  returning  the  next 
evening  in  the  same  manner.  During  the  spring  term 
of  his  freshman  year,  while  running  for  the  Dicky,  he 
had  appeared  at  a  symphony  rehearsal  in  Boston 
covered  with  shoestrings,  which  he  had  attempted  to 
sell  between  the  musical  numbers — until  ejected.  His 
general  tendency  to  make  a  fool  of  himself  had  gradu- 
ally diminished,  to  be  sure;  but  the  recollection  of  it 
had  remained.  I  had  regarded  him  with  affection, 
tempered  by  distrust,  and  had  always  suspected  him 
of  laziness  and  frivolity.  That  was  the  Jack  I  had 
left  in  December,  1916.  It  was  the  portrait  of  him 
that  I  still  carried  in  my  mind  when  I  returned  to  New 
York  the  following  October. 

But  I  soon  saw  that  something  had  occurred  un- 
dreamed of  as  possible  in  my  philosophy.  When  I 
had  first  learned  that  Jack  had  donned  the  uniform 
of  his  country  I  had  been  guilty  of  making  some  un- 
feeling jest  about  an  "ass  in  a  lion's  skin."  Now,  to 
my  wonderment  and  pride,  I  found  that  the  ass  had 
grown  to  fit  it.  If  not  yet  an  adult  lion — ass,  at  any 
rate,  he  was  no  longer.  But  to  us  he  was  a  full-grown 

179 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

lion  already.  We  regarded  him  with  respect  and  hung 
upon  his  words,  thrilled  with  a  sad  happiness. 

He  himself  knew  that  he  had  changed,  was  under 
no  delusions  as  to  what  the  future  might  have  in  store 
for  him,  and  his  constant  effort  was  to  convince  us 
that  his  going  into  the  army  was  the  greatest  thing 
that  had  ever  happened  to  him.  There  was,  even  to 
our  anxious  minds,  not  the  slightest  doubt  about  that. 
The  boy  had  actually  become  a  man. 

He  offered  me  a  cigarette,  lit  one  for  himself,  and — 
asked  me  whether  I  minded  his  putting  his  feet  upon 
the  seat  beside  me ! 

"Too  bad  it's  such  a  rotten  day!"  he  remarked, 
glancing  through  the  window.  "Anyhow,  you  can 
see  our  quarters  and  get  some  idea  of  what  it's  all  like. 
Awfully  good  of  you  to  bother  to  come." 

"Do  you  suppose  anything  could  keep  me  away?" 
I  demanded  gruffly.  "  This  war  is  the  most  momentous 
event  in  the  history  of  the  world.  I  want  to  see  all  I 
can  of  it — even  if  only  vicariously.  But  I  shall  never 
be  able  to  catch  up  with  you,  Jack." 

"Well,"  he  conceded,  "111  have  to  admit  I've 
learned  a  lot  about  all  sorts  of  things — particularly 
my  fellow  citizens  of  the  United  States  of  America. 
Out  of  the  two  hundred  and  eighty  men  in  my  com- 
pany, thirty  of  them — literally — couldn't  speak  a 
word  of  English!" 

"Couldn't  speak  English!"  I  exclaimed,  astounded. 
180 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  there  are  men  in  our  army  who 
can't  speak  English?" 

"Sure  I"  he  retorted.  "My  thirty  were  birds !  We 
had  to  begin  at  the  very  beginning — put  'em  in  line, 
point  at  their  right  foot,  and  say:  'Foot !  Right  foot ! 
That — is— your — right — foot!'  Gradually  we  got  'em 
so  they  could  face  to  the  right  and  left,  and  most  of 
them  now  can  ask  for  meat  and  beans.  Why,  there  is 
one  fellow  down  here  who  not  only  couldn't  speak  any 
English,  but  he  couldn't  tell  us  who  he  was.  Nobody 
knows  now  where  he  came  from,  how  he  got  here, 
where  he  was  born,  or  anything  about  him.  We  tried 
every  kind  of  interpreter  on  him  in  the  camp,  and  they 
all  gave  him  up  in  despair.  He  just  made  queer 
noises  with  his  mouth.  Finally  I  got  a  piece  of  paper 
and  wrote  the  word  Smith  on  it  and  pinned  it  on  his 
cuff.  'You're  Smith !'  I  said.  And  Smith  he  is ! 

"There's  a  place  called  Tiflis,  over  in  the  Cau- 
casus, where  they  say  you  can  hear  one  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  languages  spoken.  I  tell  you  it's  got  noth- 
ing on  us.  The  first  seventeen  men  on  my  muster- 
roll,  for  instance,  represent  twelve  different  nation- 
alities; and  the  first  one,  Abend,  is  a  German,  with 
two  brothers  in  the  boche  army  fighting  on  the  western 
front.  Then  there's  Aristopoulous,  a  Greek;  and  lit- 
tle Baracca,  an  Italian;  Badapol — I  don't  know  what 
he  is — some  kind  of  Slav,  I  guess;  Castaigne,  he's 
French  extraction;  Callahan,  Irish;  Conant,  Welsh; 

181 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Korbel,  Bohemian;  Dikirian,  he's  a  Syrian  rug-seller — 
I  forget  just  how  they  come;  but  further  along  there's 
Zriek,  an  Arab;  Potopoff,  a  Russian;  Pacheco,  who 
comes  from  Sonora,  Mexico;  a  whole  bunch  of  Lithu- 
anians and  a  lot  from  little  Russian  places  you  never 
heard  of  at  all. 

"They're  not  half  so  green,  though,  as  some  of  the 
chaps  right  from  the  U.  S.  A.  I've  got  two  New  York 
men  from  the  Adirondacks  who  never  were  on  a  rail- 
road-train until  they  were  drafted,  and  one  from  way 
up  near  the  Canadian  border  who  never  had  seen  an 
electric  light  or  a  moving  picture !  But  they're  bully 
stuff,  most  of  them.  Army  life  brings  out  what's 
best  in  each  one  and  sort  of  distributes  it  around 
among  the  others.  I've  learned  a  lot  from  some  of 
them." 

"How  about  those  fellows  that  have  been  forced 
into  the  service?"  I  asked.  "After  all,  it  isn't  as  if 
they  were  volunteers." 

"No,"  he  admitted,  "not  exactly— yet.  But  it's 
gradually  getting  to  be  so,  and  by  the  time  we  sail  I 
don't  believe  there'll  be  ten  per  cent  of  the  men  who 
won't  have  what  I  call  'the  volunteer,  spirit/  Of 
course,  at  the  beginning  there's  a  difference  between 
the  attitude  of  the  volunteer  and  the  selected  man. 
But  the  extraordinary  part  about  the  life  down  here  is 
that,  after  they  have  been  here  a  few  days  and  seen 
how  things  are  done,  most  of  the  men  get  an  entirely 

182 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

new  point  of  view  and  are  proud  and  glad  to  be  here. 
It  may  be  due  in  part  to  the  feeling  that,  having  been 
drafted,  they  might  as  well  make  the  best  of  it,  and 
that  the  only  way  to  save  their  own  lives — which  is 
what  I  tell  'em  every  day — is  to  make  themselves  as 
efficient  as  possible  so  that  when  they  come  out  of 
the  trenches  they  can  put  the  boches  on  the  run.  Or 
it  may  be  something  else."  He  hesitated.  "I  don't 
know. 

"There's  a  kind  of  feeling  about  the  whole  thing 
that  I  can't  explain!  Anyhow,  it  gets  hold  of  'em! 
Now,  I  am  telling  you  the  honest  truth  when  I  say 
that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  seventy-five  per  cent  of 
my  own  men  claimed  exemption  in  the  first  place, 
seventy-five  per  cent  of  all  of  them  to-day  have  abso- 
lutely the  volunteer  spirit.  The  other  twenty-five  are 
still  grumbling — frankly.  They  say  they  didn't  want 
to  fight;  that  they're  being  made  to  fight  against  their 
will;  and  that  the  decision  of  the  exemption  boards  in 
their  respective  cases  was  unfair  and  unjust.  But 
they're  getting  over  it.  They're  getting  to  see  that, 
when  you  come  right  down  to  it,  the  only  really  demo- 
cratic army  is  a  selected  army." 

"How  about  socialism?"  I  inquired  timidly. 

"I  don't  hear  much  about  it,"  he  said,  "except  the 
backhanded  kind  you  get  in  some  newspapers.  There 
isn't  any  pamphleteering  as  yet.  I  think  there's  some- 
thing about  how  our  men  are  treated  and  their  rela- 

183 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

tion  to  their  officers  which  makes  against  that  kind  of 
thing.  It's  so  different  from  the  way  things  used  to 
be  in  the  regular  army  and  the  way,  as  I  understand 
it,  things  are  on  the  other  side." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  "  I  asked.  "  How,  different  ?  " 
"Why,"  he  replied,  "we  do  everything  we  can  to 
encourage  intercourse  between  the  men  and  the  of- 
ficers. Every  man  in  the  company  is  free  to  come  to 
me  at  any  tune  to  ask  questions,  and  to  have  the 
reasons  for  doing  a  particular  thing  hi  a  particular 
way  explained  to  him.  That,  I  understand,  was 
something  unheard  of  in  the  regular  army." 

" '  Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die/  " 

I  murmured. 

"That  was  the  old  idea,"  responded  Jack.  "Now, 
I  bet  you  that  my  men  will  do  and  die  just  as  readily 
if,  before  they  reach  the  point  of  doing  and  dying, 
they  feel  that  their  government  wants  them  to  know 
and  understand  the  reason.  The  noncoms  sent  down 
here  from  the  regular  army  don't  understand  it  at 
all;  but  I  think  it  is4going  to  make  a  big  difference, 
and  it  certainly  makes  for  the  right  sort  of  democ- 
racy." 

"Do  you  find  them  quick  to  learn?  How  about 
their  intelligence?" 

"It's  really  wonderful!"  he  exclaimed  with  enthu- 
siasm. "In  the  first  place  it's  astonishing  what  a  high 

184 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

grade  of  men  we  have  got  in  the  draft.  There  are 
about  a  dozen  college  men  in  my  company  alone,  and 
there  are  any  number  of  fellows  who  have  held  rather 
responsible  business  positions.  We  have  two  noncom 
instructors  from  the  regular  army,  and  the  way  the 
fellows  pick  it  all  up  is  perfectly  astonishing. 

"There's  another  thing,  too,  you'd  be  interested 
in,  and  that's  the  general  tone  of  the  whole  place. 
Perhaps  you  don't  know  it,  but  there  used  to  be  a 
kind  of  convention  among  the  enlisted  men  at  an  army 
post  which  required  them  to  curse  every  other  word. 
Nobody  ever  spoke  of  a  rifle  as  a  plain  rule — it  was 

a rifle.  It  was  the  same  way  about  everything. 

Now  this  new  army  of  ours  is  really  a  new  army.  It 
hasn't  got  any  traditions  of  swearing  or  carousing. 
Uncle  Sam  has  started  in  perfectly  fresh,  without  the 
handicap  in  morals  that  a  huge  regular  army  would 
have  involved.  The  men  haven't  been  used  to  pro- 
fane and  smutty  talk,  and  they  don't  want  it.  Those 
that  do,  get  it  kicked  out  of  them  pretty  quick.  The 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  centres  are  simply  great !  Do  you  know 
that  we've  got  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  house  for  every  regiment  ? 
No  Sunday-school  talk,  either !  Anybody  can  go  there 
— Jews,  Roman  Catholics,  Hindus,  atheists !  A  fellow 
doesn't  have  a  Bible  shoved  into  one  hand  and  a 
hymn-book  into  the  other  if  he  wants  to  write  a  letter 
home. 

"I  have  a  vaudeville  show  every  ten  days  that, 
185 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

honestly,  beats  anything  you  can  get  on  Broadway. 
Right  in  my  own  company  I've  got  two  professional 
actors,  a  professional  dancer,  an  acrobat,  and  juggler, 
three  men  that  were  leaders  in  college  theatricals,  and 
so  much  amateur  musical  talent  that  I  don't  know 
what  to  do  with  it.  I'm  not  joking;  you  couldn't  get 
for  a  dollar  hi  New  York  City  what  our  men  get  at 
that  vaudeville  show  every  ten  days — and  the  bill  is 
new  every  tune." 

"How  about  your  equipment?" 

Jack  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Rotten!  I  suppose  it  will  come — some  time.  At 
present  in  my  company  we've  got  sixty  Erags  and 
that's  all;  but,  of  course,  we're  not  going  to  use  Krags 
on  the  other  side.  However,  I  guess  the  government 
will  look  out  for  us!  But  having  the  wrong  kind  of 
rules  is  bad  business,  because  the  balance  is  different, 
and  it  is  bound  to  handicap  us  more  or  less. 

"However,  equipment  or  no  equipment,  I  tell  you 
the  men  are  getting  into  fine  shape.  Physically  they're 
a  ripping  lot  of  fellows.  They  can  go  out  with  a  pick 
and  shovel,  and  work  four  hours  in  the  morning  and 
four  hours  again  in  the  afternoon,  and  not  turn  a  hair ! 

"I've  seen  some  remarkable  changes  in  physique 
too.  You  know,  there  are  a  lot  of  fellows  down  here 
who  are  a  great  deal  better  off  than  they  ever  were 
before  in  their  lives.  For  example,  there  are  about 
fifteen  men  in  my  company  who  worked  in  sweat- 

186 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

shops  on  the  East  Side.  I  don't  suppose  they  got  more 
than  eleven  or  twelve  dollars  a  week  at  the  outside. 
You  wonder  how  they  ever  got  by  inspection.  That's 
another  question.  You  know  they  send  us  a  lot  of 
cripples — real  cripples,  I  mean ! 

"Well,  to  get  back  to  my  sweat-shop  men.  When 
they  came  here  they  were  as  pasty-faced,  narrow- 
chested,  and  clammy-handed  a  bunch  as  you  ever 
saw.  They  had  all  claimed  exemption,  were  scared  to 
death,  and  thought  they  were  just  going  to  be  trotted 
out  and  shot.  When  they  recovered  from  fright  they 
bellowed  like  steers  about  tyranny  and  injustice! 
What's  happened?  They  have  been  given  regular 
exercise  and  all  they  can  eat  three  times  a  day,  in- 
cluding red  meat,  and  they're  fit  as  prize-fighters  and 
as  happy  as  clams. 

"To-day  you  wouldn't  know  'em !  Their  chests  have 
expanded  about  five  inches;  their  complexions  have 
cleared  up;  they've  been  in  English  school  right  along, 
so  that  by  this  time  they  can  talk  pretty  intelligibly, 
and  they  can  go  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  read,  or  watch 
a  good  vaudeville  show  for  nothing,  instead  of  paying 
their  money  to  go  to  a  cheap  movie  or  sitting  around 
talking  socialism. 

"I  tell  you  when  those  fellows  come  out  of  the  army 
they  will  have  a  respect  for  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment they'd  never  get  in  any  other  way.  When  Ikey 
and  Abie  go  back  to  the  East  Side,  if  any  greasy  an- 

187 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

archist  attempts  to  put  anything  over  on  them,  Ikey 
and  Abie  will  stand  him  up  against  the  wall  and  say: 
'See  here,  old  sport!  Have  you  ever  had  any  deal- 
ings with  the  United  States  Government?  Well,  we 
have  !  Uncle  Sam's  all  right !  Get  out  !J  ...  Hello ! 
We're  there  I" 

The  train  had  come  to  a  stop.  Outside  I  could  see 
a  half-open  shed  with  an  appurtenant  tobacco-stand, 
apparently  floating  upon  a  sea  of  yellow  mud. 

"This  is  the  lower  station,"  announced  Jack  as  the 
men  swarmed  off  the  car.  "I'm  afraid  you'll  have 
to  walk  over  to  the  camp.  It's  not  much  over  half 
a  mile.  Glad  you've  got  your  galoshes." 

Look  as  far  as  I  could  in  every  direction,  there  was 
nothing  but  a  welter  of  ooze.  Ahead  of  us  wallowed 
our  train  companions,  the  more  distant  indistinguish- 
able through  the  rain  from  the  medium  in  which  they 
wallowed.  We  wallowed  after  them.  It  was  highly- 
uncomfortable. 

"'This  isn't  war,'"  I  panted.    "'It's  murder I"^ 

Jack  held  the  umbrella  nearer. 

"I  guess  it's  the  nearest  thing  to  real  war  this  side 
of  the  trenches,"  he  answered  grimly.  "We're  well 
used  to  mud!  There  can't  be  anything  worse — even 
in  Flanders." 

Presently  we  passed  the  stable  sheds  of  the  new 
remount  station,  planned  to  hold  thirty  thousand 
horses,  and  round  which  we  could  see  the  guards  rid- 

188 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

ing  like  cowboys;  then  a  wilderness  of  low  wooden 
barracks  appeared  out  of  the  rain,  and  we  found  our- 
selves unexpectedly  walking  on  firm  macadam  down 
a  street  that  looked  something  like  an  apotheosized 
mining-camp  and  which  was  marked  "Third  Avenue." 

Everywhere  fellows  in  uniform  were  coming  and 
going.  Fours  of  newly  arrived  conscripts  tramped 
past  under  the  fearsome  direction  of  a  regular  non- 
com,  and  at  one  point  I  saw  the  bleu  del  and  red  cap 
of  a  French  officer,  who  was  instructing  a  bombing 
squad  in  an  open  field,  the  motions  of  the  men  pro- 
ducing a  strange  effect,  as  if  they  were  playing  a  com- 
bination of  cricket,  handball,  and  tenpins,  with  a  dash 
of  jumping-jack. 

We  walked  along  for  an  interminable  distance  in 
the  rain,  past  myriads  of  barracks,  all  exactly  alike, 
until  we  stopped  finally  before  one  with  which  Jack 
evidently  claimed  relationship. 

"It's  messtime,"  he  said.  "We're  a  bit  late  as  it 
is.  I  guess  we'd  better  go  right  in  at  once." 

Jack  conducted  me  into  what  somewhat  resembled 
the  lunch-room  of  a  Western  railroad  junction,  save 
that  it  was  cleaner.  All  the  tables  were  empty  but 
one.  Evidently  the  men  had  just  finished  dinner. 
Two  fellows  about  Jack's  age  were  sitting  near  a 
counter,  from  behind  which  the  food  was  lifted  from 
the  range  smoking  hot,  by  a  cook  in  a  white  coat.  I 
was  introduced  to  my  son's  junior  messmates — both 

189 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

second  lieutenants — and  found  that,  in  spite  of  my 
experiences  in  the  smoking-car,  I  had  an  excellent 
appetite  for  the  plentiful  and  well-cooked  meal  that 
was  placed  before  me. 

Our  two  table  companions  soon  excused  themselves, 
and  when  we  had  taken  our  last  cup  of  coffee  and  had 
had  a  second  helping  of  pie,  Jack  led  me  across  the  way 
to  officers'  barracks  and  into  his  own  ten-by-twelve 
bedroom.  Above  us  the  rain  drummed  steadily  on  the 
roof.  The  room  was  rather  close  and  smelled  strongly 
of  pine  boards.  To  me  it  was  dull,  dreary,  and  monot- 
onous; yet  I  could  see  that  for  him  it  was  all  invested 
with  a  glamour  like  that  of  the  Round  Table  of  King 
Arthur.  Rain  and  mud,  mud  and  rain;  yet  beyond 
that  ocean  of  mud  and  through  that  curtain  of  rain 
there  gleamed  for  him  a  vision  of  eternal  glory. 

"Do  you  have  any  time  to  yourself,  Jack?  Aren't 
you  all  tired  out?"  I  queried,  though  he  looked  hard 
as  nails. 

"I  don't  have  time  to  think  at  all,"  he  answered. 
"If  I  take  reveille  I  get  up  at  five-forty,  and  if  I  don't 
take  it  I  get  up  at  quarter  to  six.  Anyhow,  I  always 
eat  breakfast  at  six-fifteen.  From  that  time  on  I 
haven't  a  minute  until  I  hit  my  bunk,  between  eleven 
and  twelve  at  night.  The  amount  of  detail  work  is 
something  fierce !  I  spend  nearly  a  third  of  my  time 
at  my  desk,  writing  out  reports,  making  up  lists,  and 
doing  clerical  work  of  one  sort  or  another. 

190 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"Lord,  how  I  sleep!  I  guess  it's  a  good  thing. 
Otherwise  I  might  worry.  You  see,  sometimes  a  chap 
realizes  that  he  is  pretty  young  to  have  the  responsi- 
bility of  two  hundred  and  eighty  men  of  his  own  age, 
who  are  just  as  valuable  to  their  families  and  to  their 
country  as  he  is.  Most  of  those  fellows  have  more 
sense  than  I  have,  and  just  as  much  education.  The 
only  difference  is  that  I  happened  to  go  to  Plattsburg. 
I  don't  know  why  I  did,  at  that.  I  went  just  because 
my  friends  were  going.  I  didn't  have  anything  else  to 
do  particularly.  It  was  a  kind  of  adventure.  '  Soldiers 
Three*  stuff,  you  know — that  sort  of  thing. 

"I  tell  you  I  woke  up  with  a  bump  when  some  of 
the  instructors  got  talking  to  us  up  there.  The  first 
tune  you  do  bayonet  exercise  it's  enough  to  make  you 
sick !  You  realize  what  it  all  means  then.  I  feel  pretty 
sure  that  the  man  who  committed  suicide  there  did 
so  because  the  horror  of  the  whole  thing  was  too  much 
for  him.  It's  hard  to  teach  the  men  'the  will  to  use 
the  bayonet';  that  they're  sent  forward  to  kill  or  be 
killed.  There  is  no  back  step  or  fencing  taught,  and 
the  only  parry  is  the  slight  deflection  of  your  oppo- 
nent's point  immediately  before  your  own  thrust." 

"Do  the  men  appreciate  what  they  are  up  against?" 

Jack  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  think  they  do,"  he  answered  solemnly. 
"That's  the  worst  feature  of  it.  After  the  dreariness 
of  the  first  few  days  wears  off  they  get  to  be  like  a 

191 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

parcel  of  kids.  They  act  like  a  lot  of  schoolboys.  The 
difficulty  is  to  make  'em  see  the  necessity  of  discipline. 
I  have  to  talk  to  them  like  a  Dutch  uncle. 

"For  example,  there's  a  fellow  named  Coffey  in  my 
company.  Yesterday  afternoon  he  went  up  and  bought 
a  package  of  cigarettes  when  he  knew  perfectly  well 
he  wouldn't  have  time  to  get  back  for  inspection — 
didn't  think  it  made  any  difference,  you  know !  What 
are  you  going  to  do  with  a  fellow  like  that  ?  The  ques- 
tion is,  how  are  you  going  to  show  him  that  it  does 
make  a  difference? 

"'Look  here,  Coffey,'  I  said.  'I  don't  know 
what's  the  matter  with  you.  I  don't  want  to  punish 
you.  What  I  want  is  to  make  you  see  that  some  time 
or  other,  unless  you  realize  that  absolute  obedience 
to  orders  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death,  you  are  going 
to  put  yourself  and  all  of  us  in  a  hole.  When  we  get 
over  in  a  trench,  sixty  yards  opposite  the  Germans, 
and  the  order  is  given  for  us  to  go  over  and  clean 
'em  out,  you've  got  to  be  there — not  off  buying  a  pack- 
age of  fags.  Nobody  is  going  to  wait  for  you  then. 
Now,  as  I  said,  I  don't  want  to  punish  you,  but  I  don't 
know  of  any  other  way  to  bring  it  home  to  you  that 
the  safety  of  all  of  us  depends  on  your  strict  obedience 
to  orders.  You  go  down  and  saw  wood  for  three 
hours!'" 

"How  many  of  your  own  friends  volunteered?"  I 
asked. 

192 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"All  of  them/'  he  answered  instantly.  "Every  one 
of  the  fellows  I  know  either  went  to  Plattsburg  and 
got  a  commission  or  have  volunteered.  They  just  did 
it  as  a  matter  of  course — without  thinking  anything 
about  it  especially.  I  don't  know  any  college  men  of 
the  right  age  who  haven't,  except  one  or  two  cripples. 
Out  of  the  New  York  Harvard  Club's  full  membership 
of  forty-eight  hundred,  old  and  young,  there  are  nearly 
a  thousand  men  in  active  service  in  the  army  and  navy 
and  several  hundred  more  engaged  in  some  sort  of  war 
service — almost  a  perfect  record  for  the  men  of  mili- 
tary age. 

"It's  just  the  same  with  all  the  other  colleges  and 
college  clubs,  all  the  fellows  have  come  up  to  the 
scratch.  It's  what  you'd  expect,  of  course.  The  only 
ones  who  make  me  sore — when  we're  so  much  in  need 
of  officers — are  the  few  chaps  just  over  age  who  are 
perfectly  well  and  fit — athletes,  some  of  'em — who've 
got  jobs  of  one  sort  or  another  down  in  Washington, 
when  they  could  be  going  across.  I  wouldn't  mind  if 
they  didn't  pretend  to  be  doing  something.  What  I 
kick  at  is  the  able-bodied  fellow  of  thirty-five  who's 
got  a  clerical  job  in  the  War  Department  and  is 
camouflaging  behind  a  desk  in  a  uniform,  instead  of 
drilling  a  machine-gun  squad  or  teaching  his  men  how 
to  cut  through  barbed  wire. 

"Then  there's  the  husky  young  athlete  who  goes  into 
the  remount  business  and  is  busily  engaged  in  buying 

193 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

horses  out  in  Kansas,  where  he  is  fairly  safe  from  the 
U-boats,  and  the  perfectly  able-bodied  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
worker  who  is  drawing  a  salary  to  teach  the  soldiers 
how  to  play  football.  That  last  is  wonderful  work, 
but  they  should  utilize  much  older  men  or  fellows  who 
have  some  physical  defect,  instead  of  chaps  who  ought 
to  be  in  the  ranks." 

"The  slackers  will  be  the  losers,  Jack,"  I  assured 
hun. 

"But  they  may  never  know  it,"  he  answered. 
"They  certainly  won't  realize  what  they've  missed. 
They  couldn't !"  He  turned  to  me  eagerly.  "Father ! 
Life's  an  entirely  different  thing  to  me  since  I  came 
down  here.  What  I've  learned  in  the  last  six  weeks 
has  changed  every  idea  I've  ever  had.  The  friend- 
ships I've  made  would  be  enough  to  pay  for  every- 
thing. You  know,  up  at  college  we  had  a  pretty  low 
standard.  It  was  all  right  enough  hi  its  way,  but 
there  was  a  lot  of  petty  meanness  and  imputing  rotten 
motives.  Well,  here  we're  all  brothers,  and  we  know 
that  we  can  count  on  each  other  and  on  the  men — 
every  last  one  of  them.  I  didn't  used  to  have  a  very 
high  opinion  of  human  nature,  but  now  with  these 
friends  I've  made  and  my  new  knowledge  of  the  men 
I  used  to  regard  as  muckers  I  realize  how  fine  it  is — 
and  that  it's  well  worth  dying  for!" 

As  we  ploughed  back  through  the  mud  to  the  lower 
station  I  still  couldn't  bring  myself  to  realize  that 

194 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

this  serious-minded  young  officer  was  my  son.  It 
seemed  preposterous!  It  was  wholly  incredible  that 
this  was  the  silly  ass  who  had  strung  crockery  on  a 
belfry.  Here  was  a  fully  equipped  officer,  keenly  alive 
to  all  his  obligations  and  responsibilities,  produced  in  a 
little  over  three  months  of  intensive  training.  In  the 
face  of  such  a  miracle,  why  had  I  ever  bothered  about 
college? 

And  then  it  came  to  me  that  perhaps  the  college 
education  had  unconsciously  had  something  to  do 
with  it.  I  thought  of  the  Teddy-bear  at  home  and  of 
Helen,  still  almost  fresh  as  a  girl!  Was  it  possible 
that  I  had  a  son  old  enough  to  go  to  war?  Was  I  as 
old  as  all  that?  Yes;  a  thousand  years  old!  As  old 
as  Methuselah,  to  every  intent  and  useful  purpose, 
for  I  could  no  longer  bear  arms  in  defense  of  what 
I  held  most  dear  and  sacred.  The  sword  had  passed 
to  my  son  and  he  was  now  the  head  of  the  family. 
By  every  tradition  and  every  law  he  now  came 
first. 

I  wonder  if  there  is  some  peculiar  adaptability  in  the 
newer  blood  of  our  hybrid  race  that  makes  it  possible 
in  three  months  to  produce  a  thousand  youths  capa- 
ble of  training  an  army.  Was  Bryan  merely  talking 
when  he  prophesied  a  million  men  springing  to  arms 
overnight?  Probably  there  is  an  inherited  gift  for 
leadership  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  that  has  made  it  easier 
for  us.  Jack  told  us  a  story  illustrating  that  gift 

195 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

about  a  young  English  officer  in  Flanders  who,  to  the 
great  disgust  of  his  men,  always  wore  a  monocle. 
This  elegant  stripling  would  come  out  of  his  dugout 
of  a  morning  for  inspection,  yawn,  stretch,  insert  his 
eye-glass,  and,  after  glancing  over  the  battalion,  re- 
mark casually:  "You  may  carry  on,  sergeant — carry 
on!" 

One  morning  he  made  his  appearance  as  usual  to 
find  that  each  man  had  cut  the  identification  tag  off 
his  wrist  and  was  wearing  it  in  his  right  eye — a  bat- 
talion of  monocled  soldiers!  The  young  captain  put 
on  his  own  eye-glass,  stared  at  them  for  a  moment, 
then  dropped  the  monocle  into  the  palm  of  his  hand, 
spun  it  in  the  ah*  with  his  thumb,  made  a  free  catch 
of  it  in  his  eye,  straightened  up,  looked  at  them  sternly 
and  said:  "Now,  you  bloomin*  blighters,  can  you  do 
that?" 

It  is  a  fortunate  thing  for  the  world  that  this  war 
is  to  be  fought  out  by  the  young.  They  are  going 
into  it  courageously  and  gladly;  gayly  like  the  two  boys 
who  fell  leading  the  charge  at  Fontenoy,  and  of  whom 
the  old  French  chronicler  wrote:  "They  were  very 
noble — they  cared  nothing  for  their  lives!"  For 
them  war  is  a  thing  of  romance  and  of  glory,  for  them 
the  sword  still  sings: 

"The  War-Thing,  the  Comrade, 
Father  of  honor 
And  giver  of  kingship, 

196 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

The  fame-smith,  the  song  master, 
Clear  singing,  clean  slicing, 
Sweet  spoken,  soft  finishing, 
Making  death  beautiful, 
Life  but  a  coin 
To  be  staked  in  the  pastime 
Whose  playing  is  more 
Than  the  transfer  of  being; 
Arch-anarch,  chief  builder, 
Prince  and  evangelist, 
I  am  the  Will  of  God: 
I  am  the  Sword." 


The  change  the  war  has  wrought  in  Jack  it  has 
wrought  in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  other  hitherto 
careless  boys.  No  one  can  look  at  the  fellows  in  uni- 
form, however  young,  without  realizing  that  they  have 
something  of  the  nobility  and  gravity  that  always 
comes  to  those  who  hold  their  lives  secondary  to  the 
cause  they  serve. 

It  is  true  that  most  of  them  carry  it  lightly. 
"What's  the  use  of  worrying?"  But  all  the  same 
they  know  what  they  are  up  against  and  they  are  not 
going  into  it  as  an  adventure.  Then-  example  has  stiff- 
ened the  backbone  of  all  the  rest  of  us.  The  man 
who  is  not  in  uniform  is  anxious  to  show  that  it  is  not 
his  fault  he  isn't.  It  has  made  men  ashamed  to  be 
any  less  decent  than  the  chaps  who  are  going  to  fight 
for  them.  Wearing  the  uniform  has  also  done  a  good 
deal  to  reduce  the  amount  of  drinking  among  the 
younger  men  at  an  age  when  taking  a  drink  is  still 

197 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

regarded  as  a  sign  of  emancipation.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  may  become  a  race  of  chronic  cigarette 
fiends.  But  no  one  can  question  that  the  health  of 
the  nation  must  improve  as  a  result  of  the  training  our 
boys  are  receiving  and  the  effect  of  their  example  upon 
the  civilian  population.  That  and  the  reduction  in 
individual  food  consumption  may  give  us  a  concave 
national  waist-line.  Even  the  sight  of  Walter  Camp's 
adipose  office-holders  going  through  their  matutinal 
exercises  in  Washington  was  not  without  its  inspira- 
tion. Unconsciously  a  lot  of  us  are  already  hi  train- 
ing; and  before  long  most  of  us  will  be  so  consciously. 

In  the  East,  at  any  rate,  practically  all  the  boys 
who  have  prepared  for  or  gone  to  college  and  are  of 
the  proper  military  age  have  enlisted  or  received  of- 
ficers' commissions.  They  are  not  taking  the  chance 
of  being  relegated  after  the  war  to  the  class  that  didn't 
go.  For  their  generation  it  is  probably  true  that 
hereafter  there  will  be  in  effect  only  two  sorts — those 
who  went  and  those  who  didn't.  No  boy  of  twenty 
in  this  part  of  the  world  is  willing  to  invite  the  sus- 
picion of  being  a  coward  or  even  to  have  said  to  him 
as  Henry  IV  wrote  to  Crillon:  "Go  hang  yourself, 
brave  Crillon;  you  were  not  with  me  at  Arques!" 

Some  of  Jack's  friends  whose  eyes  are  bad  or  who 
have  some  other  physical  limitation  have  tried  and 
been  rejected  over  and  over  again — one  as  many  as 
eleven  times.  If  nothing  else  was  open  to  them  they 

198 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

have  secured  work  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Red  Cross,  or 
War  Relief  on  the  other  side.  Already  the  boy  of 
military  age  is  conspicuous  by  his  absence  in  New 
York  City — unless  he  is  in  uniform.  The  girls  are 
sending  them.  "No  slackers  need  apply  I"  is  their 
motto.  They  won't  dance  with  anybody  not  in  uni- 
form. Why  should  they? 

My  own  feeling  is  that  the  best  thing  that  could 
happen  to  this  country  after  its  half-century  of  finan- 
cial drunkenness  would  be  compulsory  military  train- 
ing. It  is  not  so  bad  now  for  fellows  like  Jack,  whose 
parents  can  send  them  out  of  the  city  to  country 
boarding-schools  and  afterward  to  college,  where  they 
will  get  plenty  of  athletics;  but  think  what  army  life 
would  mean  for  the  city  boys  who  otherwise  would  be 
working  indoors  in  banks  and  factories!  Think,  too, 
what  it  would  do  for  Jack  and  his  like  in  the  way  of 
discipline  and  making  men  of  them !  Then  we  should 
not  need  a  full  year  to  put  an  army  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  men  in  the  field,  and  we  might  have 
enough  rifles  to  go  round. 

I  sometimes  wonder  what  the  ultimate  effect  of  the 
fierce  life  of  the  trenches,  particularly  if  the  war  con- 
tinues for  several  years,  will  be  upon  the  youth  of  this 
country.  Dr.  Alexis  Carrel  tells  me  that  the  war  has 
produced  in  France  a  race  of  warriors — men  who  eat, 
sleep,  and  think  only  in  terms  of  war.  He  says  that 
one  day,  while  on  his  way  from  one  part  of  the  front 

199 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

to  another,  as  he  passed  through  a  half-ruined  village, 
he  was  hailed  by  a  burly  whiskered  soldier,  in  a  major's 
uniform,  who  was  leaning  against  a  shattered  wall. 

"It  was  my  old  friend  X.,"  he  explained  with 
a  smile,  "though  at  first  I  failed  to  recognize  him. 
When  I  had  last  seen  him  he  was  a  clerk  in  the  Credit 
Lyonnais.  He  had  been  shy,  anaemic,  narrow-chested, 
clean-shaved.  Now  he  was  vigorous  and  masterful. 
Moreover,  he  had  a  huge  beard,  which  added  to  the 
fierceness  of  his  appearance.  He  had  lost  all  interest 
in  anything  except  fighting,  and  could  talk  of  nothing 
else.  The  years  prior  to  the  war  no  longer  counted 
for  hun.  He  had  become  a  gladiator.  He  will  never 
be  anything  else.  When  the  war  is  over  he  will  spend 
the  rest  of  his  life  reliving  the  'battles,  sieges,  fortunes/ 
he  has  passed  through." 

"But  they  are  not  all  like  that!"  I  protested. 
"How  about  the  young  men  and  the  boys?" 

"X.  is  not  an  unusual  case,"  he  answered;  "there 
will  be  many  like  him.  For  the  youth  of  France — 
those  who  are  left — the  war  has  done  much.  It  has 
sobered  them  and  taught  them  to  bring  their  wills 
and  their  bodies  into  subjection.  It  will  mean  a  great 
deal  to  France  to  have  the  rising  generation  know  the 
value  of  discipline  and  the  necessity  of  obedience  to 
authority." 

"Do  you  think  the  war  will  have  the  same  bene- 
ficial effect  on  American  youth?"  I  asked. 

200 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"Undoubtedly!"  he  replied.  "Your  young  men 
will  come  back  with  a  new  respect  for  law  and  order; 
a  new  regard  for  their  government;  a  keener  appre- 
ciation of  the  ideals  which  that  government  repre- 
sents." 

I  hope  that  Dr.  Carrel  is  right.  Certainly  they  will 
return  with  a  new  and  broader  outlook,  a  sense  of 
solidarity  as  Americans,  and  a  militant  patriotism  that 
will  bode  ill  for  any  purveyor  of  sedition,  however 
insidious  his  methods. 

But  I  cannot  see  these  young  men  of  ours,  after 
the  excitement  of  trench  raiding  and  fighting  above 
the  clouds,  settling  down  very  speedily  to  desk  work 
in  office-buildings,  however  airy.  Neither  will  they 
be  willing,  the  majority  of  them,  to  resume  the  threads 
of  then*  interrupted  education.  There  will  be  a  new 
movement  toward  the  ever-vanishing  frontier,  a  setting 
westward  in  the  search  for  wider  ranges,  for  life  in  the 
open  air. 

"So  for  one  the  wet  sail  arching  through  the  rainbow  round  the 

bow; 

And  for  one  the  creak  of  snow-shoes  on  the  crust; 
And  for  one  the  lake-side  lilies  where  the  bull  moose  waits  the 

cow, 
And  for  one  the  mule-train  coughing  in  the  dust." 

We  reached  the  shed  twenty  minutes  before  train 
time,  and  sat  down  on  a  damp  bench  under  a  smoking 
kerosene-lamp.  Over  our  heads  the  rain  drove  upon 

201 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

the  roof  in  a  never-ceasing  tattoo.  Jack  was  inhaling 
the  omnipresent  cigarette.  A  pall — I  believe  that  is 
the  word — had  fallen  upon  our  conversation,  engen- 
dered by  our  mutual  consciousness  that  all  this  mere 
informative  talk  was  beside  the  mark. 

I  hadn't  come  down  there  in  the  mud  to  try  the 
beef  and  test  the  beds.  I  knew  it  and  he  knew  it.  The 
beds  and  the  beef  had  nothing  to  do  with  what  had 
been  uppermost  in  our  minds  and  hearts  all  day.  But 
the  words  wouldn't  come.  Jack  lit  another  cigarette 
and  changed  his  position,  and  a  water-soaked  tramp 
edged  in  and  slumped  down  in  the  corner,  with  his 
head  on  his  chest.  More  than  ten  minutes  had  gone 
by.  Then  Jack  suddenly  said  awkwardly: 

"I  suppose  you  and  mother  would  like  to  know 
before  I  go  what  I  think  about  things — religious  things, 
you  know.  Some  of  us  get  together  by  ourselves  here 
and  talk  them  over  now  and  then.  We  didn't  before 
we  came.  But,  you  see,  we  all  can't  help  knowing, 
of  course,  that  we  mayn't  come  back;  and — and — so 
you  wondef  if  there  would  be  anything  else  afterward 
if  you  didn't." 

I  nodded.    It  had  come. 

"Well,  honestly,  dad" — how  sweet  the  word  was! — 
"I  don't  know.  I  haven't  much  faith,  I  guess,  of  the 
orthodox  kind;  but  I  can't  help  feeling  that  it  doesn't 
make  much  difference  so  long  as  you  know  that  you're 
doing  the  right  thing." 

202 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"No,"  I  muttered.  "But  how  do  you  know  it's 
the  right  thing?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"But  I  do  know  it!"  he  said.  "To  fight— to  die— 
for  one's  country  is  bound  to  be  the  right  thing.  It 
doesn't  matter  that  I  can't  tell  you  why.  It's  the 
thing  itself  that's  worth  while — not  the  reason." 

In  the  grimy  old  shed  I  put  my  arm  about  his  strong 
young  shoulders. 

"Listen,  Jack,"  I  whispered,  though  the  tramp  was 
oblivious  of  our  presence.  "Years  ago  I  heard  a 
Memorial  Day  address  by  Judge  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  and  it  made  such  an  impression  on  me  that 
I  learned  it  by  heart.  It  is  the  answer  to  my  question. 
What  he  said  was  this: 

"  'I  do  not  know  what  is  true.  I  do  not  know  the 
meaning  of  the  universe.  But  in  the  midst  of  doubt, 
in  the  collapse  of  creeds,  there  is  one  thing  I  do  not 
doubt — that  no  man  who  lives  in  the  same  world  with 
most  of  us  can  doubt — and  that  is  that  the  faith  is 
true  and  adorable  which  leads  a  soldier  to  throw  away 
his  life  in  obedience  to  a  blindly  accepted  duty,  in  a 
cause  which  he  little  understands,  in  a  plan  of  cam- 
paign of  which  he  has  no  notion,  under  tactics  of  which 
he  does  not  see  the  use !' ' 

Jack  made  no  reply. 

'  *  For  high  and  dangerous  action/  "  I  continued, 
( '  teaches  us  to  believe  as  right  beyond  dispute  things 

203 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

for  which  our  doubting  minds  are  slow  to  find  words 
of  proof.  Out  of  heroism  grows  faith  in  the  worth  of 
heroism/ ' 

The  bell  beside  the  track  began  to  ring  its  staccato 
warning,  and  above  the  noise  of  the  rain  there  came 
the  whistle  of  the  up-train.  We  got  to  our  feet. 

"That's  pretty  good  stuff,"  he  said  in  an  embarrassed 
fashion.  "You  might  send  it  to  me,  if  you  will.  I'd 
like  the  other  fellows  to  see  it." 

The  sailing  of  Jack's  regiment  was  a  topic  never 
referred  to  by  us,  save  indirectly.  Sometimes  Helen 
would  begin  a  sentence  and  abruptly  discontinue  it, 
such  as,  "I  suppose  he'll  need—  And  I  would  have 
verbal  evidence  of  what  she  was  thinking  of  in  addition 
to  the  pile  of  neat  packages  and  bundles  that  gradually 
accumulated  on  the  hall-table  for  Jack  to  take  away 
when  he  should  come  to  say  good-by.  But  we  had  a 
sneaking  idea  that  maybe  it  wouldn't  be  necessary 
for  him  to  go  after  all. 

Down-town  they  were  saying  that  the  war  would 
be  over  in  six  weeks — in  three  months,  anyway.  News 
of  a  peace  conference  might  come  at  any  moment. 
Germany,  it  was  predicted  with  confidence,  had  no 
wish  permanently  to  antagonize  the  United  States, 
and  would  see  to  it  that  hostilities  would  be  over  long 
before  our  boys  could  get  within  range  of  the  guns. 
That  hope  was  always  shining  through  the  gray  clouds 

204 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

of  our  depression.  And  we  were  so  proud  of  him  that 
we'd  hardly  condescend  to  speak  to  those  of  our  friends 
who  hadn't  a  service-flag  with  at  least  one  star  on  it. 

Being  the  father  or  the  mother  of  a  soldier  is  the 
next  thing  to  being  one  yourself.  Unconsciously  I 
aped  Jack's  manner  of  standing,  and  walked  and  talked 
in  a  military  sort  of  way,  arrogating  to  myself  a  special 
knowledge  of  the  purposes  of  the  War  Department 
by  virtue  of  my  vicarious  connection  with  the  service. 
We  didn't  more  than  half  believe  that  anything  more 
would  come  of  it.  Germany  would  probably  back 
down  at  the  last  minute  and  there  would  be  all  the 
honor  and  glory  without  any  actual  fighting,  and  Uncle 
Sam  would  be  sitting  at  the  head  of  a  Thanksgiving 
peace  table,  handing  around  slices  of  Turkey  as  he 
saw  fit. 

Of  course  I  knew  the  transports  were  sailing  right 
along,  and  that  we  had  thousands  of  troops  on  the 
other  side;  but  that  knowledge  was  literary  rather 
than  actual.  It  was  like  the  background  on  an  enlist- 
ment poster.  The  phrase  "Our  boys  are  already  in 
the  trenches"  didn't  mean  anything  more  to  us  than 
"Food  is  Ammunition,"  or  "Ring  It  Again!"  You 
can't  have  your  boy  lounging  in  a  brand-new  uniform, 
smoking  a  cigarette  by  the  library  fire,  with  the  sun 
pouring  in  through  the  Seventy-second  Street  window, 
and  grasp  the  fact  that  in  three  weeks  he  may  be  sitting 
in  a  listening  post  within  ten  yards  of  a  gang  of  Prus- 

205 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

sians  who  would  cut  his  throat  rather  than  bother  to 
take  him  prisoner.  You  can't  do  it.  You  don't  be- 
lieve any  of  it.  Things  like  that  might  happen  to  other 
men's  sons,  but  never  to  yours.  So  we  dreamed  on, 
as  the  sailing  was  postponed  from  week  to  week. 

Then  late  one  afternoon,  a  message  came  that  if 
I  wished  to  see  my  son  before  he  sailed  the  next  morn- 
ing I  must  immediately  present  myself  at  a  certain 
place,  and  receive  the  special  written  authority  to 
accompany  him  aboard  the  transport  which  had  been 
accorded  to  me  by  the  War  Department.  I  hung  up 
the  receiver  weakly.  That  curt  voice  on  the  other 
end  of  the  wire  had  paralyzed  my  motor  centres.  They 
couldn't  be  going  to  ship  him  off  like  that,  without 
giving  him  a  chance  to  say  good-by  to  his  mother! 
It  wasn't  human!  But  I  had  no  time  to  waste  if  I 
was  to  meet  him,  for  the  place  of  embarkation  was  a 
long  distance  from  New  York  City. 

I  scribbled  a  hurried  note  for  Helen,  who  was  down- 
town, put  the  bundles  and  packages  in  a  valise,  sum- 
moned a  taxi,  and  within  an  hour  had  been  given  my 
pass  and  full  instructions  as  to  what  I  must  do.  I 
took  a  train  to  a  certain  nameless  town,  and  shortly 
before  midnight  was  hurrying  down  a  side  street  lead- 
ing to  an  empty  railroad  yard  near  the  water-front. 

I  can  see  every  detail  of  it  as  vividly  now  as  I  could 
then.  Night  after  night  I  find  myself  there  in  my 
dreams.  It  is  always  the  same — my  sufferings  are 

'206 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

the  same.  I  am  stumbling  along  in  the  dark  in  my 
fur  coat,  carrying  my  bag,  when  out  of  the  shadows  a 
vague  figure  lurches  forward  and  holds  a  bayoneted 
rule  against  my  chest.  Under  the  yellow  circle  of  a 
flash-light  my  letter  of  identification  and  pass  are  ex- 
amined and  1  am  told  to  pass  on.  Half  a  block  farther 
along  I  am  stopped  again  and  the  process  is  repeated. 
Once  more,  and  at  last  I  am  turned  loose  into  the  net- 
work of  tracks  where  the  trains  are  to  come  in. 

Over  on  the  other  side  half  a  dozen  forms  are  stand- 
ing around  a  small  fire,  and  I  clamber  across  the  rail- 
road-ties and  make  myself  known  to  them.  They 
are  transportation  officers  and  express  surprise  at  the 
permission  granted  me.  I  mention  the  name  of  my 
partner  Morris.  "Oh,  Morris!" — that  explains  it. 
Apparently  he  is  some  sort  of  hidden  power  who 
lurks  behind  the  arras  at  Washington.  They  show 
great  respect  for  Morris's  partner,  and  I  hand  round 
cigars,  inquiring  when  the  train  is  expected.  The 
senior  officer  says  it  ought  to  be  in  in  about  an  hour — 
it  is  due  already;  but  they  had  a  hot  box  or  something. 
He  expresses  unmitigated  contempt  for  the  railroad  cor- 
poration whose  enforced  hospitality  we  are  enjoying. 

It  is  cold  and  we  huddle  together,  warming  our 
finger-joints  over  the  tiny  blaze — a  large  one  might 
attract  attention;  for  the  government  has  succeeded 
in  keeping  the  location  of  the  place  a  secret  and  no 
one  may  approach  within  half  a  mile  without  proper 

207 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

identification.  We  talk  of  things  military  and  naval 
in  a  desultory  way.  The  transportation  officer  thinks 
the  war  will  last  not  less  than  five — very  probably  ten 
years.  I  am  just  recovering  from  the  shock  of  his 
prophecy  when  a  green  semaphore  swings  up  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  yard.  "Train's  coming!"  he  says, 
and  we  all  hasten  after  him  down  the  track. 

Round  a  curve  chugs  an  old-fashioned  locomotive 
with  a  dirty  headlight.  It  stops,  jerks,  and  heaves 
again,  banging  the  cars  together  behind  it  like  empty 
coal-scuttles.  There  is  no  light  except  in  the  driver's 
cab;  every  car- window  is  tightly  closed,  with  curtains 
drawn.  Slowly  the  antediluvian  engine,  with  its 
antiquated  smoke-stack,  yanks  its  burden  into  the 
middle  of  the  yard  and,  with  a  final  cough,  relapses 
into  silence. 

No  sound  comes  from  inside  the  cars,  though 
cracks  of  light  are  visible  round  the  edges  of  the  win- 
dows. Are  there  really  men  inside,  or  is  it  a  chain  of 
"empties"?  The  officer  climbs  to  the  platform  and 
pokes  his  head  into  one  of  the  cars.  A  rookie  appears 
and  swings  down  to  the  ground,  followed  by  a  dozen 
others,  who  move  toward  the  engine.  They  are  the 
baggage-squad  charged  with  the  duty  of  transporting 
the  soldiers'  kits  to  the  waiting  steamer. 

Where  is  Jack?  I  begin  to  be  impatient.  The 
quiet  is  getting  on  my  nerves.  No  one  speaks  above 
a  whisper.  One  of  the  officers  taps  me  on  the  shoul- 

208 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

der,  leads  me  to  one  of  the  farther  cars,  and  goes  in- 
side. In  a  few  moments  he  comes  back  with  a  tall, 
coated  figure.  The  form  doesn't  look  natural,  some- 
how. Then  two  hands  are  clapped  on  my  shoulders 
and  Jack's  voice  whispers:  "Hello,  sir !  Bully  of  you  to 
come !  Sorry  I  couldn't  see  mother  again.  But  you'll 
explain  to  her,  won't  you?" 

Together  we  stand  in  silence  under  the  canopy  of 
stars,  as  one  by  one  the  sleepy  men  drop  off  the  steps 
of  the  car  and  form  in  loose  lines  outside.  Jack  leans 
over  and  tells  me  that  the  boys  are  all  very  tired; 
that  the  cars  are  of  the  vintage  of  1875 — exhumed 
from  some  forgotten  limbo  for  this  purpose — and 
practically  without  ventilation.  Do  I  know  where  he 
could  buy  them  some  coffee?  I  shake  my  head.  Ap- 
parently no  provision  has  been  made  for  any  refresh- 
ment at  this  stage  of  their  journey.  Lights  flash  here 
and  there  about  the  yard.  The  pile  of  luggage  has 
melted  away.  The  fire  has  died  out. 

A  noncom  hurries  up  and  says  something  to  Jack 
in  a  low  tone.  There  is  a  movement  of  expectation 
along  the  waiting  line  of  men,  which  stiffens  up  and 
shuffles  together.  There  is  a  muffled  word  of  com- 
mand; the  line  faces  toward  the  right  and  the  men 
march  off  in  single  file.  I  follow  along  with  Jack,  who 
has  taken  my  bag  away  from  me  and  tucked  his  arm 
under  mine.  We  feel  our  way  along  the  yard,  skirt 
a  pile  of  coal,  stumble  across  a  vacant  lot  covered  with 

209 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

empty  tin  cans  and  clinkers,  and  come  to  a  wharf  at 
which  is  tied  up  an  ancient  side- wheel  steamer  belong- 
ing to  a  bygone  era  of  navigation.  She  shows  no 
lights  except  a  riding  light.  Her  decks  are  empty. 

We  mount  the  gang-plank  and  pile  into  the  dingy 
saloon.  Kerosene-lamps  are  smoking  in  brackets 
along  the  walls,  the  window-shades  are  closely  drawn. 
It  is  dank  and  stuffy  in  there,  but  the  fellows  begin 
to  joke,  referring  to  the  old  tub  as  the  Mayflower. 
I  have  a  strange  feeling  of  unreality.  This  is  not  my 
idea  of  a  departure  at  all.  It  is  more  like  the  aftermath 
of  a  Yale-Harvard  game,  the  ^anticlimax  of  coming 
back  in  a  crowded  smoking-car  after  it  is  all  over. 
The  men  compose  themselves  in  various  attitudes  of 
discomfort  and  try  to  go  to  sleep.  Many  lie  down  on 
the  floor.  Three  repose  at  full  length  on  the  table  in 
the  centre.  I  try  unsuccessfully  to  think  of  something 
to  say  to  Jack. 

At  the  end  of  forty-five  minutes  we  hear  the  gang- 
plank being  run  in  and  there  is  a  jingle  from  the 
engine-room.  The  wheels  begin  to  turn  and  the  old 
side-wheeler  begins  to  strain  and  groan.  From  for- 
ward the  transportation  officer  beckons  us  to  join  him 
and  we  ascend  to  the  pilot-house,  where  we  find  seven 
or  eight  others.  All  is  darkness,  except  for  the  aura 
round  the  binnacle  and  the  glowing  tips  of  the  ciga- 
rettes. 

We  are  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  shore  and 
210 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

moving  quite  rapidly.  A  hundred  yards  ahead  in  the 
starlight  I  can  make  out  the  narrow  hull  of  a  destroyer, 
which  leaves  a  sharp,  white  wake  in  which  we  follow. 
Here  and  there  are  scattered  lights — distant  win- 
dows along  the  water-front.  We  light  one  cigarette 
after  another,  and  I  produce  a  couple  of  pounds  of 
cake  chocolate,  which  is  quickly  and  gratefully  con- 
sumed. 

The  tune  drags  slowly.  The  shore  fades  out,  then 
draws  near  again.  Sometimes  there  are  many  lights; 
sometimes  almost  none.  We  pass  a  lighthouse.  I 
recognize and  then .  Then  I  recognize  every- 
thing at  once.  I  know  where  we  are.  A  faint  pale  line 
begins  to  show  along  the  horizon  and  the  side-wheeler 
staggers  against  the  chop  made  by  the  tide  running 
against  the  wind. 

We  turn,  and  just  ahead  I  see  the  huge  gray  bulk 
of  a  converted  German  ocean-liner  against  a  pier. 
The  destroyer  has  swung  away,  running  free  of  us  in 
a  wide  circle.  Behind  us  I  now  discover  three  other 
similarly  convoyed  side-wheelers.  From  the  smoke- 
stacks of  the  transport  the  smoke  is  pouring  in  dense 
masses,  but  no  lights  gleam  from  her  port-holes.  She 
is  simply  a  black  blot  against  the  sky-line.  The  of- 
ficers say  good-by  to  me;  we  leave  the  pilot-house  and 
go  back  to  the  saloon. 

"All  right,  boys!"  says  Jack.  "A  couple  of  hours 
more  and  you  can  get  your  phonographs  going." 

211 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"Rather  set  my  jaws  going !"  retorts  a  fat  boy,  and 
the  crowd  laughs  good-naturedly. 

The  steamer  bumps  against  the  wharf  and  the 
gang-plank  is  run  out.  The  men  pick  up  their  rifles 
and  adjust  then*  clothes.  Jack  and  I  lead  the  way  on 
to  the  dock,  on  the  opposite  side  of  which  yawns  the 
black  hole  in  the  side  of  the  transport.  The  company 
files  off  one  boat  and  directly  on  to  the  other,  where 
each  man  is  handed  a  slip  with  the  number  and  loca- 
tion of  his  berth. 

The  system  is  perfect;  the  embarkation  takes  place 
almost  in  silence. 

"Well,  father!" 

Jack  has  turned  to  me  and,  smiling  and  happy, 
lays  his  arm  on  my  shoulder.  The  moment  has  come, 
then.  What  shall  I  say?  There  was  so  much  of  en- 
couragement and  affection  that  I  had  carefully  planned 
to  put  into  my  parting  speech — how  we  were  all  so 
proud  of  him  and  would  think  of  him  every  moment 
until  his  return;  how,  of  course,  he  would  return — 
the  war  certainly  would  be  over  soon;  and  how  we 
knew  he'd  do  his  duty;  and  so  on. 

How  fatuous  it  would  all  sound !  He  knows  every- 
thing I  want  to  say — perfectly  well.  There  is  nothing 
to  make  a  fuss  about.  Yet  I  can't  let  him  go  like  that 
— just  like  that — without  saying  anything!  While 
I  hesitate,  a  private  hurries  up  and,  first  saluting  him, 
touches  Jack  upon  the  arm. 

212 


MY  SOLDIER  SON 

"Capt.  Stanton,  the  colonel  wants  you!" 

"All  right!"  answers  Jack.  He  bends  over  quickly 
and  touches  his  lips  to  my  cheek. 

"Good-by!"  he  exclaims  cheerfully.  "Kiss  mother 
for  me — and  Margery!" 

"  Good-by,  Jack !  I  hope — never  mind !  Good-by, 
old  fellow !— Oh,  Jack " 

But  he  has  gone. 

The  last  company  marches  aboard  and  the  sliding- 
door  is  pulled  to.  The  smoke  is  coming  even  thicker 
now  from  the  transport's  funnels,  and  there  is  a  white 
froth  rising  from  beneath  her  stern.  Silently  the 
hawsers  are  slipped.  Over  behind  the  city's  castellated 
sky-line  there  is  a  yellow  glow,  and  the  water  of  the 
river  is  tinted  with  purple.  A  cold  wind  creeps  round 
my  ankles.  It  is  chilly  after  the  warm  pilot-house. 

Slowly  the  great  leviathan  separates  herself  from 
the  wharf  and  backs  away,  out  into  midstream.  Not 
a  light  is  visible.  Not  a  man  is  above  deck.  She  looks 
like  an  interned  empty  German  liner  whose  mooring 
is  being  shifted.  Yet  inside  her  black  hulk  ten  thou- 
sand of  the  youth  of  America  are  starting  on  their 
great  crusade  for  the  maintenance  of  humanity — that 
freedom  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


213 


VII 
WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

"So  speak  ye,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall  be  judged  by  the 
law  of  liberty.  For  he  shall  have  judgment  without  mercy  that 
hath  showed  no  mercy  *  *  *  ."  James  ii  :  12,  13. 

Why  have  I  sent  my  son  across  the  seas  to  fight? 

Two  years  ago,  on  the  Sunday  following  the  torpe- 
doing of  the  Lusitania,  a  party  of  sixteen  people  was 
assembled  at  luncheon  in  the  Long  Island  country  house 
of  a  distinguished  New  York  lawyer.  Inevitably  the 
sole  topic  of  conversation  was  the  attitude  the  United 
States  should  adopt  toward  the  German  Government, 
which  had  thus  wantonly  murdered  so  many  helpless 
American  men,  women,  and  children.  Of  those  pres- 
ent several  were  jurists  of  wide  reputation  or  persons 
of  more  than  ordinary  intelligence  and  standing  in 
the  community.  After  a  lengthy,  general  discussion 
of  that  barbaric  act,  I  remember  saying  that  I  wished 
that  our  government  would  immediately  declare  war 
upon  Germany  or,  at  least,  sever  diplomatic  relations 
pending  what  reparation  was  possible  and  adequate 
guarantees  that  such  methods  of  warfare  should  be 
discontinued.  To  my  surprise  there  was  little  echo 

214 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

to  these  sentiments,  and  upon  my  asking  our  host  to 
submit  the  question  to  a  vote  of  those  at  the  table, 
only  one  other  man  and  his  wife  agreed  with  me  and 
mine. 

Our  friend  smiled  tolerantly. 

"How  could  war  prove  anything  but  an  inconceiva- 
ble disaster  I"  he  remarked,  as  he  pushed  back  his 
chair.  "It  must  be  the  last — and  only  the  last — 
resort." 

That  already  seems  a  lifetime  ago.  My  friend,  as 
he  readily  admits,  neither  knew  what  he  knows  now 
nor  conceived  it  to  be  possible.  Had  he  done  so  he 
would  have  been  then,  as  I  was,  for  war.  To-day  that 
same  middle-aged  lawyer — that  conservative  stand- 
patter— is  touring  the  country  stimulating  by  his  elo- 
quence hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  to  enlist.  He  is 
for  the  war — to  a  finish.  For  peace  only  with  victory. 

I  do  not  say  that  my  friend  is  a  different  man,  but 
he  is  an  outraged  one.  He  exercises  still  the  discrim- 
inating processes  of  mind  that  have  made  him  a  leader 
of  the  bar,  and  which  enabled  hirr\  to  weigh  more  or 
less  calmly  the  specious  arguments  advanced  by  Ger- 
many for  her  ruthless  undersea  warfare.  The  mental 
habits  of  a  lifetime  rendered  him  incapable  of  adopt- 
ing any  other  attitude  toward  Germany  than  that 
which  he  would  have  maintained  toward  a  fellow  prac- 
titioner in  a  court  of  justice — that  of  courteous  con- 
sideration. He  was  accustomed  to  give  every  devil 

215 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

his  due.  He  assumed  that  even  if  the  German  General 
Staff  were,  as  matter  of  law,  guilty  of  piracy  or  murder, 
their  guilt  was  due  to  a  mistake  in,  or  at  least  a  colora- 
ble construction  of,  the  law  upon  their  part — that  they 
had,  as  we  would  have  expressed  it,  some  sort  of  "a 


case." 


Then  suddenly  he  discovered  that  he  had  made  an 
almost  incredible  mistake.  He  awoke  to  the  fact 
that  the  blows  of  his  opponent  were  not  accidentally 
but  intentionally  below  the  belt,  that  his  adversary 
was  not  a  misguided  gentleman  but  a  cold-blooded 
and  heartless  liar,  thief,  and  murderer.  In  a  word, 
the  earthquake  has  jarred  my  friend  into  a  realization 
of  the  significance  of  the  present  struggle,  much  as 
it  did  the  English,  after  they  had  for  a  year  or  so 
treated  the  Germans  like  "good  sports."  For  we  now 
perceive  that  this  war  could  not  have  been  averted, 
that  it  was  inevitable,  and  had  circumstances  been 
such  that  we  could  have  gone  into  it  at  the  time  of 
the  iMsitania  incident,  peace  with  victory  might  be 
ours  by  now — not  merely  an  optimistic  confidence  that 
the  United  States  is  too  populous  and  too  rich  and 
too  generally  lucky  not  eventually  to  win.  Yet  we 
are  to-day  as  a  nation  almost  as  hazy  over  what  we 
are  up  against  as  my  technical  lawyer  friends  were 
two  years  ago,  when  they  pondered  so  solemnly  Ger- 
many's camouflage  about  international  law. 

For  while  technically  the  violating  of  our  rights 
216 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

as  neutrals  may  have  been  the  basis  of  our  declaration 
of  war  against  Germany  in  1917,  just  as  it  was  of  the 
war  of  1812  with  England,  and,  before  that,  with  the 
Barbary  pirates,  we  are  actually  engaged  in  a  death 
grapple  with  a  malign  and  conscienceless  enemy  for 
the  ideals  of  Christianity  as  against  those  of  a  cruel 
and  remorseless  paganism. 

We  had  regarded  Germany  as  a  Christian  nation 
whose  people  believed,  as  we  believe,  in  the  love  of 
God  for  all  men,  and  in  that  of  all  men  for  each  other. 
We  had  read  the  output  of  her  political  philosophers 
with  a  half-amused  tolerance,  accepting  them  as  the 
mere  theories  of  intellectuals  as  we  had  the  meta- 
physics of  her  scholars.  It  was  as  if  some  friend  of 
ours  had  said  half  jocularly:  "Well,  you  know  that 
I'm  really  an  anarchist."  We  would  have  believed  it 
about  as  much.  We  felt  that,  after  all,  beneath  his 
bullying  manner — his  habit  of  fonptmtmi — the  Teuton 
had  a  warm  and  generous  heart.  We  could  not  and 
most  of  us  do  not  even  to-day  realize  that  the  teach- 
ings of  Treitschke,  Nietzsche,  and  Bernhardi — consti- 
tuting the  "Religion  of  Valor" — the  inhuman  doc- 
trine of  might  as  right — is  "inspired  by  the  pulpits 
as  religion;  taught  by  the  universities  as  philosophy; 
disseminated  by  the  press  as  policy  and  political  ne- 
cessity; embodied  in  the  army  as  national  loyalty 
and  duty,  and  focussed  hi  the  Kaiser  as  the  minister 
of  the  Almighty." 

217 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

What  is  this  philosophy  or  religion? — this  "Ger- 
man Idea"?  It  is  the  doctrine  that  as  between  states 
or  nations  there  is  no  such  thing  as  law  or  morals; 
that  in  the  struggle  for  existence  between  them  war  is 
the  supreme  and  necessary  test  by  which  the  "fitness" 
of  the  survivor  must  be  determined,  and  that  in 
making  war  the  state  need  recognize  neither  truth, 
decency,  nor  humanity. 

Curiously  enough,  it  was  from  my  lawyer  friend 
that  I  learned  this. 

I  had  gone  to  dine  with  him  in  order  that  we  might 
quietly  discuss  the  best  method  of  bringing  home  to 
the  people  of  the  United  States  the  necessity  of  our 
rendering  prompt  and  substantial  aid  to  the  Allies, 
and  we  had  retired  to  his  library  after  a  frugal  meal 
quite  unlike  the  lavish  hospitality  of  former  years. 
We  still  had  our  pipes,  however. 

"Stanton,"  he  said  gravely  as  he  handed  me  the 
matches,  "there  are  two  essentials  in  the  campaign 
of  education  which  you  have  undertaken.  The  first 
is  to  convince  people  that  the  strictest  economy  must 
be  practised  if  we  are  to  win  the  War;  the  second,  sur- 
prising as  it  may  seem,  is  that  we  must  win  the  war — 
that  no  half-way  decision  is  possible — that  only  a 
peace  forced  upon  a  vanquished  Germany  will  end 
the  struggle." 

"Don't  you  think  that  the  people  at  large  under- 
stand the  necessity  of  victory  ?  "  I  inquired. 

218 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

"No,"  he  replied  with  earnestness,  "I  do  not.  I 
even  doubt  if  you  do." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  demanded. 

"I  mean  that,  while  Washington  is  alive  to  the 
situation,  the  people  as  a  whole  are  not,  and  that  in- 
dividually few  of  us  have  grasped  the  fact  that  Ger- 
man political  philosophy  and  military  practice  are 
one  and  the  same.  For  example,  you  recall  the  tur- 
moil occasioned  by  Bethmann-Hollweg's  reference  to 
a  treaty  being  only  va  scrap  of  paper '?  Well,  that 
was  no  new  thing.  It  is  part  of  the  German  creed. 
The  cardinal  principle  of  their  statecraft  is  deceit. 
Bethmann-Hollweg's  now  historic  phrase  is  nothing 
but  the  echo  of  the  declaration  of  Frederick  William 
IV  in  his  speech  from  the  throne  on  April  11,  1847, 
when  he  said,  'All  written  constitutions  are  only 
"scraps  of  paper."'  The  scrap-of-paper  theory 
as  well  as  the  phrase  itself  is  an  old  story  in  Ger- 
man diplomacy." 

"That  is  rather  interesting,"  I  admitted.  "And, 
I  confess,  new  to  me.  But  that  sort  of  thing  isn't 
sincere,  is  it?  I  assumed  it  was  mere  bluster." 

My  friend  laughed. 

"Not  much.  It's  gospel!  I've  been  making  a 
rather  careful  study  of  the  statements,  written  and 
delivered,  of  Germany's  rulers,  statesmen,  and  mili- 
tary leaders,  with  respect  to  her  aims,  policies,  and  the 
conduct  of  war.  I  propose  printing  my  researches 

219 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

some  time  for  the  benefit  of  the  public."  *  He  grew 
suddenly  stern. 

"I  tell  you,"  he  added  fiercely,  "we  are  contend- 
ing against  the  most  damnable  philosophy  that  ever 
poisoned  the  body  politic  of  a  civilized  people!  In 
international  relations  no  such  thing  as  truth  or  honor 
is  recognized." 

"Do  you  actually  mean  to  say  that  the  Germans 
do  not  recognize  any  sanctions  of  law  or  morals  what- 
soever so  far  as  the  state  is  concerned?"  I  asked,  for 
the  proposition  seemed  to  me  preposterous. 

"Precisely,"  he  answered.  "That  is  elementary 
with  them.  Their  fundamental  principle  is  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  of  evolution  by  which  the  world 
is  governed,  the  Hohenzollerns  by  divine  right  should 
rule  Prussia;  that  Prussia  for  the  good  of  Germany 
should  rule  Germany;  and  that  Germany  for  the  good 
of  the  world  should  rule  the  world.  Any  means  to 
accomplish  that  end  are  moral." 

"Is  that  what  they  mean  by  'Kultur'?"  I  asked. 

"'Kultur/  he  quoted,  "'is  the  spiritual  organiza- 
tion of  the  world,  which  does  not  exclude  bloody 
savagery.  It  raises  the  demonic  to  sublimity.  It  is 
above  morality,  reason,  science.'  "  f 

"  What  nonsense ! "  I  ejaculated. 

*  "Out  of  Their  Own  Mouths  "  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York, 
1917),  from  which  admirable  compilation  much  of  the  material  for 
this  chapter  has  been  taken. 

f  Mann  in  the  Neue  Rundschau  for  November,  1914. 

220 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

"Nonsense?  By  no  means!  Hear  what  the  dis- 
tinguished Professor  Lasson*  has  to  say  on  the  sub- 
ject: 

"  'Between  states  there  is  but  one  sort  of  right — 
the  right  of  the  stronger.  .  .  . 

"  'There  is  no  legal  obligation  upon  a  state  to  ob- 
serve treaties.  .  .  . 

"  'A  state  cannot  commit  a  crime.  .  .  . 

"  'Treaty  rights  are  governed  wholly  by  considera- 
tions of  advantage.  .  .  . 

"  'A  so-called  small  state  is  not  a  state  at  all,  but 
only  a  tolerated  community,  which  absurdly  pretends 
to  be  a  state.  .  .  . 

' '  The  weak  are  prone  to  cherish  a  comf orting  be- 
lief in  the  inviolability  of  the  treaties  that  assure  them 
their  miserable  existence.  But  one  of  the  functions 
of  war  is  to  prove  to  them  that  a  treaty  may  be  a  bad 
one,  that  circumstances  may  have  changed.  There  is 
only  one  guaranty — adequate  military  force.  .  .  .' 

"Heinrich  von  Treitschke,  the  most  influential 
political  philosopher  of  Germany  during  the  last  cen- 
tury, like  his  great  pupil  Bernhardi,  taught  that  war 
was  a  biological  necessity,!  that  any  attempt  to  abol- 
ish it  was  unwise  and  unmoral,  and  that  it  should  be 
ruthless  to  the  last  degree,  .  .  .  saying  'for  the  state 

*Das  Kulturideal  unter  dem  Krieg,  pp.  11-13,  31,  32,  61,  105, 
130. 

t "  Politik,"  vol.  I,  p.  100. 

221 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

self-assertion  is  the  greatest  of  the  commandments; 
for  it,  this  is  absolutely  moral.  And  for  this  reason 
it  must  be  declared  that  of  all  political  sins  the  most 
abominable  and  the  most  contemptible  is  weakness; 
this  is,  in  politics,  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost/ 
'The  living  God/  he  assures  us,  'will  take  care  that 
war  shall  always  return  as  a  terrible  medicine  for  the 
human  race.' 

"Vernon  Kellogg,  who  saw  a  great  deal  of  the  Ger- 
man General  Staff  when  the  Great  Headquarters — 
Grosses  Hauptquartier — of  all  the  German  armies  of 
the  west  was  in  the  Ardennes — where  often  the  'All- 
Highest'  was  there  in  person — says,*  in  explanation 
of  his  conversion  from  pacifism: 

'"Professor  von  Flussen — that  is  not  his  name — 
is  a  biologist.  So  am  I.  So  we  talked  out  the  biological 
argument  for  war,  and  especially  for  this  war.  The 
captain-professor  has  a  logically  constructed  argument 
why,  for  the  good  of  the  world,  there  should  be  this 
war,  and  why,  for  the  good  of  the  world,  the  Germans 
should  win  it,  win  it  completely  and  terribly.  Unfor- 
tunately, for  the  peace  of  our  evenings,  I  was  never 
convinced.  That  is,  never  convinced  that  for  the  good 
of  the  world  the  Germans  should  win  this  war,  com- 
pletely and  terribly.  I  was  convinced,  however,  that 
this  war  once  begun  must  be  fought  to  a  finish  of  de- 
cision— a  finish  that  will  determine  whether  or  not 
*  Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1917. 
222 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

Germany's  point  of  view  is  to  rule  the  world.  And 
this  conviction,  thus  gained,  meant  the  conversion 
of  a  pacifist  to  an  ardent  supporter,  not  of  war,  but 
of  this  war;  of  fighting  this  war  to  a  definite  end — 
that  end  to  be  Germany's  conversion  to  be  a  good 
Germany,  or  not  much  of  any  Germany  at  all.  .  .  . 

:  'The  creed  of  the  allmacht  of  a  natural  selection 
based  on  violent  and  fatal  competitive  struggle  is  the 
gospel  of  the  German  intellectuals;  all  else  is  illusion 
and  anathema.  ...  As  with  the  different  ant  species, 
struggle — bitter,  ruthless  struggle — is  the  rule  among 
the  different  human  groups. 

:  'This  struggle  not  only  must  go  on,  for  that  is 
the  natural  law,  but  it  should  go  on,  so  that  this  natural 
law  may  work  out  in  its  cruel,  inevitable  way  the  sal- 
vation of  the  human  species.  By  its  salvation  is  meant 
its  desirable  natural  evolution.  That  human  group 
which  is  in  the  most  advanced  evolutionary  stage  as 
regards  internal  organization  and  form  of  social  re- 
lationship is  best,  and  should,  for  the  sake  of  the  species, 
be  preserved  at  the  expense  of  the  less  advanced,  the 
less  effective. 

"It  should  win  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  and 
this  struggle  should  occur  precisely  that  the  various 
types  may  be  tested,  and  the  best  not  only  preserved, 
but  put  in  position  to  impose  its  kind  of  social  organiza- 
tion— its  Kultur — on  the  others,  or,  alternatively,  to 
destroy  and  replace  them. 

223 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"  'The  danger  from  Germany  is,  I  have  said,  that 
the  Germans  believe  what  they  say.  And  they  act  on 
this  belief.  Professor  von  Flussen  says  that  this  war  is 
necessary  as  a  test  of  the  German  position  and  claim. 
If  Germany  is  beaten,  it  will  prove  that  she  has  moved 
along  the  wrong  evolutionary  line,  and  should  be  beaten. 
If  she  wins,  it  will  prove  that  she  is  on  the  right  way, 
and  that  the  rest  of  the  world,  at  least  that  part  which 
we  and  the  Allies  represent,  is  on  the  wrong  way  and 
should,  for  the  sake  of  the  right  evolution  of  the  human 
race,  be  stopped,  and  put  on  the  right  way — or  else 
be  destroyed,  as  unfit.  If  the  wrong  and  unnatural 
alternative  of  an  Allied  victory  should  obtain,  then  he 
would  prefer  to  die  in  the  catastrophe  and  not  have 
to  live  in  a  world  perversely  resistant  to  natural  law. 
He  means  it  all.  He  will  act  on  his  belief.  He  does 
act  on  it,  indeed.  He  opposes  all  mercy,  all  compromise 
with  human  soft-heartedness.  .  .  . 

"'There  is  no  reasoning  with  this  sort  of  thing, 
no  finding  of  any  heart  or  soul  in  it.  There  is  only 
one  kind  of  answer:  resistance  by  brutal  force;  war 
to  a  decision.  It  is  the  only  argument  in  rebuttal 
understandable  of  these  men  at  headquarters  into 
whose  hands  the  German  people  have  put  their 
destiny.  .  .  .' 

"I  confess,"  continued  my  friend,  "that  two  years 
ago  when  you  were  here  I  didn't  understand  this  thing. 
I  didn't  take  the  Kaiser  seriously  when  I  read  his 

224 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

proclamation  to  the  army  of  the  East  in  1914.  I 
thought  it  bombast.  Well,  it  was  Germany's  creed." 

"  I  forget,"  said  I.    "  What  was  it  ?  " 

He  opened  a  scrap-book. 

"  'Remember  that  you  are  the  chosen  people !  The 
spirit  of  the  Lord  has  descended  upon  me  because  I 
am  the  Emperor  of  the  Germans ! 

"  'I  am  the  instrument  of  the  Almighty.  I  am  his 
sword,  his  agent.  Woe  and  death  to  all  those  who 
shall  oppose  my  will!  Woe  and  death  to  those  who 
do  not  believe  in  my  mission !  Woe  and  death  to  the 
cowards ! 

"'Let  them  perish,  all  the  enemies  of  the  German 
people!  God  demands  their  destruction,  God,  who, 
by  my  mouth,  bids  you  to  do  his  will  P 

"Or  take  this  frank  confession  of  Harden's:  'One 
principle  only  is  to  be  reckoned  with — one'which  sums 
up  and  includes  all  others — force !  Boast  of  that  and 
scorn  all  twaddle.  Force !  that  is  what  rings  loud  and 
clear;  that  is  what  has  distinction  and  fascination. 
Force,  the  fist  that  is  everything.  .  .  .  Let  us  drop 
our  pitiable  efforts  to  excuse  Germany's  action;  let  us 
cease  heaping  contemptible  insults  upon  the  enemy. 
Not  against  our  will  were  we  thrown  into  this  gigantic 
adventure.  It  was  not  imposed  on  us  by  surprise. 
We  willed  it;  we  were  bound  to  will  it.  We  do  not 
appear  before  the  tribunal  of  Europe;  we  do  not 
recognize  any  such  jurisdiction.  Our  force  will  create 

225 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

a  new  law  in  Europe.  It  is  Germany  that  strikes. 
When  it  shall  have  conquered  new  fields  for  its  genius, 
then  the  priests  of  all  the  gods  will  exalt  the  war  as 
blessed/  "  * 

"There  speaks  the  truth!"  I  exclaimed. 

"The  truth  I"  he  retorted.  "Yes,  spoken  by  a  Ger- 
man militarist  only  in  wine,  arrogance,  or  inadvertence. 
To  the  gospel  of  force,  mendacity,  hate,  and  brutality 
are  indispensable.  Hence,  the  German  rulers  have 
always  cultivated  hatred  of  their  enemies.  'War  is 
not  a  society  game/  they  say,  'war  is  hell-fire. '"  t 

"  If  war  is  hell-fire,  as  this  kind  of  war  certainly  is/' 
I  returned  with  conviction,  "what  are  the  men  who 
practise  it?" 

"I  can't  tell  you,"  he  answered.  "I  do  not  think 
that  during  war  they  are  men  at  all.  They  tell  me 
that  a  full-blooded  German  almost  never  is  tried  in 
our  criminal  courts,  but  if  one  does  appear  there  it  is 
apt  to  be  for  some  atrocious  form  of  murder  or  man- 
slaughter. War  seems  to  transform  them  into  homi- 
cidal maniacs — the  mere  thought  or  discussion  of  it 
to  produce  an  obsession  in  their  minds.  Can  there 
be  any  doubt  but  that  hatred  and  bitterness  and  ter- 
rorizing make  for  immediate  military  effectiveness? 
Of  course  they  do.  Yet  to  what  horrors  do  they  lead! 

*Zukunft,  August,  October,  1914,  cited  in  the  New  York  Times, 
December  6th,  1914. 

f  Walter  Bloem  in  the  Kolnische  Zeitung  for  February  10th, 
1915. 

226 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

Let  me  read  you  from  the  diaries  of  German  soldiers 
written  during  the  invasion  of  Belgium." 

I  listened  with  growing  indignation  for  several  min- 
utes— until  I  could  stand  it  no  longer. 

"Stop!  for  God's  sake,  stop!"  I  begged,  half 
nauseated  at  what  he  had  read  me.  Was  this  the 
kind  of  war  to  which  I  had  sent  our  gentle,  gallant 
boy  across  the  ocean ! 

My  friend  raised  his  eyebrows. 

"It  is  all  done  under  the  personal  supervision  of 
the  Almighty  by  his  personal  representative — William 
Hohenzollern — if  we  are  to  accept  the  latter's  state- 
ment," said  he.  "But  this  William-God  or  God- 
William  partnership  is  a  very  special  and  private 
affair.  Indeed,  Professor  Wilhelm  Ostwald  has  pointed 
this  out  with  unconscious  humor  in  an  interview  in 
the  Stockholm  Dagen,  in  which  he  said:  'I  will  say, 
however,  that  in  our  country  God  the  Father  is  re- 
served for  the  personal  use  of  the  Emperor.  In  one 
instance  he  was  mentioned  in  a  report  of  the  General 
Staff,  but  it  is  to  be  noted  that  he  has  not  appeared 
there  a  second  time.'" 

I  tried  to  laugh.  The  whole  thing  was  too  fantastic, 
too  barbaric,  too  horrible.  I  recalled  Heine's  state- 
ment in  "De  PAllemagne,"  that  while  Christianity 
had  to  a  certain  extent  softened  the  brutal  belligerent 
ardor  of  the  Teuton,  it  had  not  been  able  to  destroy 
it;  and  that  when  the  Cross  should  be  broken,  the  fe- 

227 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

rocity  of  the  old-time  fighters,  the  frenzied  exaltation 
of  the  Berserkers  will  again  burst  forth.  "Then/* 
he  declares  with  uncanny  prophecy,  "the  old  war-gods 
will  arise  from  their  legendary  tombs  and  wipe  the 
dust  of  ages  from  their  eyes;  Thor  will  arise  with  his 
gigantic  hammer  and  demolish  the  Gothic  cathedrals." 

Is  there  any  doubt  but  that  this  war  is  between 
paganism  and  Christianity  ? 

In  place  of  the  precepts  of  the  gentle  Christ  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  we  have  Nietzsche's  "Thus 
Spake  Zarathustra: 

"Ye  shall  love  peace  as  a  means  to  new  wars — and 
the  short  peace  more  than  the  long. 

"Ye  say  it  is  the  good  cause  which  halloweth  every 
war?  I  say  unto  you:  It  is  the  good  war  which  hal- 
loweth every  cause.  War  and  courage  have  done  more 
great  things  than  charity.  ...  Be  not  considerate  of 
thy  neighbor — what  thou  doest  can  no  one  do  to  thee 
again.  Lo,  there  is  no  requital. 

"Thou  shalt  not  rob!  Thou  shalt  not  slay! — such 
precepts  were  ever  called  holy.  ...  Is  there  not 
even  in  all  life  robbing  and  slaying?  And  for  such 
precepts  to  be  called  holy,  was  not  truth  itself  there- 
by slain  ?  .  .  . 

"This  new  table,  oh,  my  brethren,  put  it  up  over 
you.  Become  hard." 

The  German  golden  rule  is  well  put  by  Karl  Peters: 
228 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

"It  is  foolish  to  speak  of  a  justice  that  should  hinder 
us  from  doing  to  others  what  we  ourselves  do  not  wish 
to  suffer  from  them/'  * 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  Germany  is  not, 
and  has  not  been  for  a  long  time,  a  Christian  nation. 
The  Rev.  Isaac  J.  Lansing  of  Ridgewood,  New  Jersey, 
in  a  recent  address  f  has  pointed  out  that  in  order  to 
fulfil  the  purpose  of  Germany  to  dominate  the  world 
by  an  army  engaged  in  ruthless  war,  unrestrained  by 
morality  and  humanity,  it  became  necessary  to  dis- 
possess the  Christian  ideals  of  morals  and  humanity 
previously  held  by  the  German  people.  The  most 
violent  and  deliberate  attacks  upon  Christianity  were 
resorted  to  in  order  that  this  political  philosophy 
might  penetrate  and  control  the  nation.  The  gospel 
and  the  life  of  Christ  were  assailed  as  mythical;  it  was 
declared  that  the  greatest  mistake  in  Germany's  his- 
tory was  made  in  accepting  Christianity  from  the 
Roman  Empire  in  the  fifth  century;  that  it  was  an 
alien  religion  derived  from  an  effete  and  decadent  na- 
tion; that  it  was  foreign  to  German  spirit  and  genius. 
Treitschke  and  his  millions  of  followers  repudiated  the 
Beatitudes  and  prepared  to  found  a  world  empire  based 
on  a  new  pagan  religion,  which  made  it  necessary  for 
them  incidentally  to  destroy  the  Scriptures. 

*  Not  und  Weg,  pp.  13-14. 

f  "  What  We  Are  Fighting— and  What  For,"  given  before  The 
Rotary  Club  of  New  York  City. 

229 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Now  when  the  German  war-lords,  statesmen,  and 
philosophers  embarked  upon  their  attempted  con- 
quest of  the  world  they  had  at  their  disposal  the  most 
perfect  war-machine  ever  devised.  It  was  and  is  a 
marvel  of  foresight  and  invention.  Their  plans  had 
been  laid  for  years  in  the  minutest  detail.  To  them 
victory  seemed  a  matter  of  course — a  question  of  mere 
addition — so  many  days  to  Rheims,  so  many  hours 
to  Paris.  And  they  would  have  marched  into  Paris 
on  schedule  tune,  and  they  would  have  won  the  war 
and  dominated  the  world  but  for  a  single  element 
which  they  had  discounted  as  of  no  moment — the 
loyalty  of  the  rest  of  mankind  to  the  moral  ideas  which 
these  Germans  had  cast  aside  as  an  impediment  to 
their  development — the  ideals  commonly  referred  to 
as  Christian — of  honor,  humanity,  and  self-sacrifice. 
They  would  have  won  the  war  but  for  the  "scrap  of 
paper"  and  the  submarine. 

Though  the  Kaiser  thinks  himself  a  wiser  man  than 
old  Bismarck,  had  Bismarck  been  alive  Germany  would 
have  won  the  war,  since  Bismarck  would  never  have 
deliberately  elected  to  place  his  country  in  what  the 
rest  of  the  world  regarded  as  the  moral  wrong.  Speak- 
ing before  the  Reichstag  February  6,  1888,  upon  the 
question  of  whether  Germany  should  be  the  aggressor 
in  a  war  upon  Russia,  the  shrewd  old  warrior  said: 
"If  in  the  end  we  proceed  to  attack,  the  whole  weight 
of  the  imponderables,  which  weigh  much  heavier  than 

230 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

material  weights,  will  be  on  the  side  of  our  enemies 
whom  we  have  attacked." 

The  imponderables!  Justice,  truth,  pity,  charity, 
loyalty- — mere  ideas — offspring  of  the  brain — and 
heart — not  even  "scraps  of  paper,"  things  lighter  than 
air — yet  more  powerful,  as  the  Kaiser  has  discovered 
to  his  cost,  than  the  heaviest  of  Krupp's  cannon  or  the 
best  disciplined  divisions  of  "shock"  troops;  ideas 
that  have  spread  over  the  whole  world — Christian, 
Hebrew,  Buddhist,  or  Mohammedan. 

For  when  William  sought  to  procure  the  "Jehad," 
or  Holy  War,  by  virtue  of  which  he  expected  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  million  Mohammedans  to  fall  upon  and 
massacre  the  Christian  inhabitants  of  their  lands,  he 
found  that,  with  the  exception  of  his  vassal  Turkey,  ev- 
ery Moslem  country  repudiated  his  demand  although 
the  "Jehad"  was  legally  declared  by  the  requisite  ec- 
clesiastical authority.  Even  so,  in  Armenia  two  mil- 
lion hapless  people  have  died  since  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  victims  of  massacre,  of  torture,  of  starvation, 
and  of  the  horrors  of  deportation  and  slavery.  The 
"imponderable"  sentiment  which  this  has  engendered 
may  well  prove  the  millstone  which  will  drag  down  the 
Kaiser  into  the  turbid  stream  of  everlasting  infamy 
and  disgrace. 

Yet  we  are  not  fighting  against  the  war-lord  and 
his  military  advisers  alone — the  "military  party"  of 
which  so  much  has  been  said  in  the  spoken  as  well  as 

231 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

in  the  written  word.  At  best  the  militarists  could  do 
no  more  than  drag  an  unwilling  nation  into  war. 
They  could  not  have  forced  whole  armies  composed  of 
adult  men  to  cast  aside  all  the  restraints  of  honor  and 
humanity  unless  those  millions  had  already  been  in- 
oculated with  the  virus  of  deceit  and  brutality.  For 
the  German  nation  has  whole-heartedly  and  unitedly, 
in  a  degree  to  astound  civilization,  supported  its  mili- 
tary rulers,  and  their  policy  has  been  universally  com- 
mended. No  one  man,  no  group  of  men  is  responsible 
for  this  thing.  It  is  due  to  the  insidious  spread  of  an 
evil  idea  which  has  brought  material  prosperity  to 
a  (at  heart)  materialistic  nation.  The  cause  of  this 
inconceivably  awful  slaughter  is  the  irreconcilable 
antagonism  of  German  political  philosophy  with  the 
faith  and  ideals  of  the  civilized  Christian  nations  of 
the  world,  and  of  those  nations  who  while  loyal  to 
faiths  bearing  other  names,  are,  nevertheless,  follow- 
ers of  its  principal  ethical  teachings. 

This  atrocious  German  military  philosophy  knows 
no  mercy  and  stops  at  nothing.  It  frankly  believes 
that  falsehood,  torture,  rape,  crucifixion,  slavery,  mas- 
sacre, and  murder  are  justifiable.  It  laughs  at  the 
appeal  of  benevolence  and  morality. 

A  German  victory — or  an  inconclusive  peace — 
would  mean  the  ultimate  realization  of  the  German 
idea  that  Germany  for  the  good  of  the  world  must 
rule  the  world.  This  has  been  taught  in  her  univer- 

232 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

sities  as  philosophy  and  in  her  pulpits  as  religion. 
The  German  nation  unquestioningly  accepts  it  and  in- 
tends to  force  the  rest  of  the  world  to  accept  it.  This 
is  the  "Kultur,"  which  they  claim  is  "above  morality." 

Kultur  teaches  that  there  is  only  one  sort  of  right — 
that  of  the  stronger.  It  argues  with  specious  pro- 
fundity that  in  the  relations  of  nations  with  one  an- 
other there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  truth  or  honor.* 
Frederick  the  Great  taught  that  the  Germans  must 
make  it  their  "study  to  deceive  others  in  order  to  get 
the  better  of  them."t 

The  Germans  believe  themselves  to  be  a  nation  of 
supermen  and  the  Kaiser  the  war-partner — not  of  the 
God  of  Humanity— but  the  "gute  alte  Gott"  of  the 
pagan  North — the  War  God — who  revels  in  the  shrieks 
of  women  and  the  torture  of  children,  in  bloodshed  and 
cruelty.  "I  am  His  sword,  His  agent  I"  declares  Wil- 
liam Hohenzollern.  "Let  all  the  enemies  of  the  Ger- 
man people  perish!  God  demands  their  destruction 
— God,  who  by  my  mouth,  bids  you  do  His  will  !"t 

To  accomplish  this  "divine"  will  the  German  mili- 
tary authorities  believe  that  any  means  are  warranted 
—the  mowing  down  of  crowds  of  helpless  civilians 
with  machine-guns,  the  cutting  off  of  the  breasts  of 
women,  the  battering  in  of  the  skulls  of  the  wounded 

*Das  Kulturideal  unter  der  Krieg,  pp.  11-13,  31,  32,  61, 
105,  130. 

t  Works  of  Frederick  II,  Berlin  Ed.,  1848. 

j  Proclamation  of  the  Army  of  the  East,  1914. 

233 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

with  rifle-butts.  "Be  as  terrible  as  Attila's  Huns!" 
ordered  the  Kaiser.*  "It  is  better  to  let  a  hundred 
women  belonging  to  the  enemy  die  of  hunger  than  to 
let  a  single  German  soldier  suffer." t  "All  prisoners 
are  to  be  put  to  death,"  ordered  General  Stenger,  in 
Belgium.!  Writes  a  Bavarian  private:  "During  the 
battle  of  Budonwiller  I  did  away  with  four  women  and 
seven  young  girls  in  five  minutes.  The  captain  had 
told  me  to  shoot  these  French  sows,  but  I  preferred  to 
run  my  bayonet  through  them."§ 

This  is  the  concrete  result  of  what  the  Germans  call 
"The  Religion  of  Valor"  and  "The  Gospel  of  Hate." 
Says  one  of  their  spokesmen:  "Must  Kultur  build 
its  cathedrals  on  hills  of  corpses,  seas  of  tears,  and  the 
death-rattle  of  the  vanquished  ?  Yes,  it  must."  || 

If  Germany  wins  the  war,  the  United  States  will 
either  be  paying  tribute  to  the  Kaiser  or  German  sol- 
diers will  be  bayoneting  American  girls  and  women 
in  Jersey  City  rather  than  take  the  trouble  to  shoot 
them. 

If  Germany  wins,  all  our  ideals  of  truth,  justice,  and 
humanity — which  we  call  Christian — will  be  trodden 
down  into  bloody  mire  under  the  iron  heel  of  the 

"The  Kaiser's  speech  to  the  Chinese  Expeditionary  Force, 
July  27,  1900. 

t  General  von  der  Goltz,  "Ten  Iron  Commandments  of  the 
German  Soldiers." 

J  Orders  of  the  Day,  August  26,  1914. 

§  Johann  Wenger,  Peronne,  March  16,  1915. 

II  Walter  Bloem  in  the  Kolnisdhe  Zeitung,  Feb.  10,  1915. 

234 


WHY  JACK  HAS  GONE 

Kaiser's  armies,  and  the  coming  generation  will  be 
taught  that  there  is  no  God  but  the  merciless  God  of 
Battle  who  speaks  through  Germany's  treacherous 
tongue  and  by  her  brutal  sword. 

We  are  fighting  for  far  more  than  our  lives.  We 
are  fighting  for  the  future  of  the  race.  We  are  fighting 
to  turn  back  the  bloody  tide  of  tyranny  and  barbarism. 
We  are  fighting  for  our  faith  in  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  in  the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

That  is  why  Jack  has  gone. 


235 


VIII 

"OF  SHOES-OF  SHIPS-OF  SEALING- 
WAX " 

"Not  a  wheel  must  turn,  not  a  human  back  be  bent  in  the 
production  of  non-essentials  until  the  war  is  won !  Not  a  brick 
must  be  laid,  not  a  beam  lifted  into  place,  not  a  shovelful  of 
earth  displaced  in  private  or  corporate  construction  until  the 
shipyards  and  munition-factories  have  their  full  quota  of  work- 
ers. The  use  and  manufacture  of  luxuries  and  unnecessaries 
must  cease.  Just  as  our  soldiers  at  the  front  must  be  drilled 
and  disciplined  in  order  to  defeat  the  Germans,  so  the  nation 
at  home  must  be  drilled  and  disciplined  into  a  great  universal 
army  of  savers.  The  one  is  as  essential  as  the  other." 

"That  seems  a  bit  exaggerated!"  said  I  to  myself, 
as  I  laid  aside  my  morning  paper  and  put  on  my  over- 
coat; nevertheless,  what  I  had  read  remained  sub- 
consciously in  my  mind. 

Ralph  Sanderson  had  asked  us  to  motor  out  and 
spend  the  week-end  at  his  country  place.  It  was  a 
clear  October  day,  and  as  we  glided  through  the  up- 
town streets  everywhere  the  Stars  and  Stripes  were 
flying  and  the  service-flags,  hanging  before  shops  and 
houses,  told  how  each  particular  family  had  responded 
to  the  call  of  duty.  Occasionally  we  passed  a  com- 
pany of  men  in  khaki,  and  once  a  full  regiment,  headed 

236 


"OF  SHOES-OF  SHIPS " 

by  its  band  and  playing  "Over  there — over  there — 
over  there ! "  It  was  an  inspiriting,  a  thrilling  spec- 
tacle. 

Yet,  apart  from  the  flags  and  the  music,  I  could  see 
very  little  change  in  the  life  about  us.  Fifth  Avenue 
was  literally  choked  with  motors,  many  of  them  with 
two  men  upon  the  box.  The  congestion  at  Thirty- 
fourth  and  Forty-second  and  Fifty-ninth  Streets  had 
never  before  approached  what  it  had  been  since  my 
return.  And  now  as  we  hummed  along  the  boulevards 
we  overtook  an  uninterrupted  stream  of  pleasure-cars, 
all  bound  for  a  holiday.  We  passed  a  half-completed 
church  with  workmen  literally  swarming  over  its  scaf- 
foldings. In  front  of  each  of  the  multitude  of  apart- 
ment-houses swaggered  about  stalwart  uniformed 
porters.  Across  the  East  River  several  blocks  of  jerry- 
buildings  were  being  put  up.  Everywhere  sign-boards 
advertised  new  plays  and  restaurants,  with  hideous 
caricatures  of  young  ladies  and  their  young  bounder 
friends  partaking  of  broiled  live  lobster  for  the  purpose 
of  luring  the  public  to  "groves,"  "gardens/*  and 
"palaces,"  there  to  dine  not  wisely  but  too  well. 

Presently  we  escaped  the  semirural  regions  of 
gas-tanks,  road-houses,  and  motor-service  depots,  and 
achieved  the  dense  rusticality  of  the  estates  of  the 
Long  Island  gentry.  It  was,  let  us  say,  somewhere 
in  that  region  of  darkest  agriculturalism  adjacent  to 
Roslyn  and  Glen  Cove,  where  excellent  country-build- 

237 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

ing  sites  can  be  obtained  as  low  (on  bargain-days) 
as  three  thousand  dollars  per  acre — if  one  buys  whole- 
sale— that  we  came  into  view  of  what  at  first  I  took 
to  be  a  medieval  fortress. 

Two  steam-rollers  were  smoothing  the  avenue  lead- 
ing to  the  portal  in  order  to  facilitate  the  movement 
of  some  twenty  carts  filled  with  building  materials. 
The  air  rang  with  the  rat-tat-tat  of  the  riveting-ma- 
chine, the  shouts  of  the  workmen,  and  the  pound  of 
the  sledge-hammer.  Several  hundred  carpenters, 
steam-fitters,  plumbers,  and  electricians  must  have 
been  at  work  inside  this  modern  palace  which  with 
its  wings  could  not  have  been  less  than  four  hundred 
feet  in  width,  while  the  grounds  were  dotted  with  la- 
borers laying  out  roads,  making  flower-beds,  and  set- 
ting out  trees.  There  was,  in  fact,  a  small  army  at 
work. 

"That's  Bing's  new  place,"  said  Sanderson.  "Some 
Waldorf— what?" 

"Who's  Bing?"  I  inquired. 

My  friend  gazed  at  me  incredulously. 

"Didn't  you  ever  hear  of  'The  Polygon  Pictures 
Company'? — that's  Bing.  They  say  he's  made  a 
little  matter  of  nine  million  dollars  this  year,  and  he's 
keeping  it  safe  for  America;  doesn't  want  to  let  it  get 
out  of  the  country,  he  says." 

"Bing  must  be  a  bird!"  I  remarked  in  disgust. 

"He  is,"  readily  agreed  Sanderson.  "There  are 
238 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

several  other  B ing-birds  down  here — though  not  of 
the  same  name." 

Since  we  were  on  our  way  to  the  extreme  eastern 
end  of  Long  Island  we  stopped  for  luncheon  at  one 
of  the  numerous  golf-clubs  scattered  along  the  high- 
roads among  the  building  sites.  One  differentiates 
the  estates  of  the  gentry  from  the  golf-clubs  by  the 
amount  of  bunkers  and  bunk.  There  was  a  fair-sized 
crowd  in  the  restaurant  being  served  by  from  fifteen 
to  twenty  able-bodied  waiters;  and,  over  the  course,  I 
counted  from  the  veranda  seventeen  other  employees 
sedulously  engaged  in  rolling  putting-greens,  cutting 
grass,  replacing  divots,  and  similar  productive  tasks. 
There  were  thirty-eight  motors — including  my  friend's 
— parked  in  the  circle  in  front  of  the  club-house. 

"How  many  men  are  there  on  your  pay-roll?"  I 
asked. 

"Between  fifty  and  sixty,  counting  the  house- 
servants,  and  in  the  garage,  stable,  and  on  the  links," 
he  replied.  "We  absolutely  need  every  one  of  them 
to  keep  the  club  going." 

Before  the  end  of  our  day's  trip  we  passed  a  dozen 
more  large  country  houses  and  three  other  new  golf 
clubs  and  links  in  process  of  construction.  On  these 
last  the  work  was  obviously  being  rushed.  The  war 
had  evidently  not  retarded  in  the  slightest  degree 
these  private  enterprises  either  collective  or  individual. 
Of  course  people  must  have  summer  places,  hot- 

239 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

houses,  and  golf-clubs!  Farther  along  the  shore  my 
host  pointed  out — I  thought  with  some  local  pride — 
an  immense  estate  where  a  large  force  of  men  were 
employed  in  raising  fancy  shrubs  and  hothouse  plants, 
building  rock  gardens,  and  in  general  turning  the 
sandy  Long  Island  landscape  into  a  small  modern 
Versailles. 

We  arrived  at  our  destination — a  comfortable 
colonial  mansion  over  a  hundred  years  old  on  the  out- 
side, but  entirely  reconstructed  so  far  as  the  interior 
was  concerned — about  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
and  had  tea  on  an  enclosed  veranda,  served  by  a  young 
English  butler  and  a  second  man  in  livery.  There 
had  apparently  been  no  alteration  in  the  size  of  our 
friend's  menage,  but  later  he  took  occasion  to  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  we  were  partaking  of  what 
he  was  pleased  to  call  a  "war  dinner,"  in  consequence 
of  which  he  seemed  convinced  that  he  was  placing 
his  native  country  irreparably  in  his  debt.  Simply 
because  he  had  Graham  bread  instead  of  white,  and 
turkey  instead  of  lamb ! 

Incidentally  he  had  the  butler  open  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne, on  the  ground  that  to  drink  it  would  help  the 
French !  The  war  was  the  sole  topic  of  conversation, 
and  Sanderson  speedily  showed  that  he  was  excep- 
tionally well  informed  upon  every  political  and  mili- 
tary phase  of  it.  He  recurred  constantly  to  the  as- 
sertion that  he  made  a  point  of  observing  minutely 

240 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS- 


every  governmental  regulation  or  suggestion,  and  let 
drop  the  fact  that  he  had  contributed  largely  to  the 
Red  Cross,  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  other  sorts  of  war  relief, 
and  had  as  well  invested  twenty-five  thousand  dollars 
in  Liberty  Bonds. 

I  let  him  rave  on.  What  use  was  it  to  point  out  to 
my  well-meaning  but  misguided  friend  that  though 
his  four  courses  were  literally  within  the  Hooverian 
limit,  every  one  of  them  violated  it  in  spirit,  since  in 
each  case  the  most  lavish  use  was  made  of  expensive 
condiments,  seasonings,  and  preserves,  requiring  large 
quantities  of  butter  and  sugar.  The  fact  that  these 
were  used  on  fish  instead  of  meat  was  the  merest  in- 
cident. He  would  have  retorted  that  he  was  obeying 
orders  in  having  a  meatless  and  wheatless  day,  and 
that  that  was  all  there  was  to  it. 

Well,  it  might  have  seemed  ungracious  for  a  guest 
to  discuss  the  champagne,  and  on  the  whole  we  con- 
cluded to  hold  our  peace.  But  the  sight  of  the  two 
sturdy  young  Englishmen,  solemnly  stalking  around 
the  table  passing  liqueurs  when  they  ought  to  have 
been  hi  the  trenches,  gave  me  an  unpleasant  feeling, 
as  well  as  the  inclination  later  to  lure  one  or  both  of 
them  out  of  the  ambush  of  their  pantry  and  stand  them 
up  against  the  wall  and  find  out  why  they  were  not 
where  they  belonged. 

But  I  find  that  butlers,  second  men,  and  chauffeurs 
"are  different,"  somehow.  It  is  so  easy  to  become 

241 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

dependent  upon  particular  servants.  Most  women 
would  rather  have  a  chop  handed  round  by  dear  old 
stupid  James  than  a  golden  pheasant  served  by  a 
maid,  however  chic.  Knee-breeches  for  some  are  the 
insignia  of  respectability,  and,  of  course,  one  can  be 
nothing  if  not  respectable ! 

Last  autumn  the  following  appeared  in  a  leading 
New  York  daily  in  the  column  devoted  to  "society": 

Sept.  12 — Possibility  of  the  drafting  of  aliens,  as  proposed  by 
the  joint  resolution  in  Congress,  has  caused  consternation  among 

the  big villas,  in  most  of  whjch  "English  and  French  men 

servants  are  employed.  On  the  estates  many  Breton  French  are 
employed  as  gardeners  and  caretakers. 

Mrs.  .  .  .  has  an  English  butler  and  four  other  men  servants 
who  would  be  subject  to  the  draft.  Mrs.  .  .  .  has  four  English 
men  servants.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  .  .  .,  Mrs.  .  .  .,  and  Mrs.  .  .  ., 
Mrs.  .  .  ,,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  .  .  .  and  others  would  lose  either  their 
butlers  or  helpers  in  the  draft. 

In  spite  of  the  calls  to  service  many  aliens  employed  in  the 
cottages  have  remained  in  this  country,  tempted  by  increases 
in  wages  and  other  inducements.  Besides  men  who  handle  the 
affairs  of  the  butlers'  pantries  others  in  the  cottagers'  kitchens 
would  be  affected  by  the  resolution.  The  wealthy  sojourners 
hold  these  men  to  be  indispensable  in  serving  dinners  and  con- 
ducting entertainments. 

Though  the  rich  woman  has  cheerfully  given  out  of 
her  abundance,  has  bravely  watched  her  sons  go  off  to 
the  front  and  her  husband  intern  himself  in  Washing- 
ton for  the  period  of  the  war,  she  has  generally  flinched 
so  far  when  it  came  to  the  lesser  sacrifices  involving 

242 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

discomfort  or  even  merely  inconvenience.  She  has 
procrastinated  in  the  hope  that  the  war  might  end  or 
some  valid  excuse  turn  up  which  would  relieve  her  of 
the  disagreeable  necessity  of  giving  up  her  cherished 
butler  and  second  man. 

Up  to  this  time  the  patriotism  of  the  wealthy  has 
been  shown  far  less  in  the  direction  of  household 
economy  than  in  their  public  activities.  To  be  sure, 
dinners  are  shorter  on  the  whole;  there  are  fewer  able- 
bodied  butlers  and  second  men  about;  the  dressmakers 
complain  that  their  fashionable  customers  are  wearing 
their  last  year's  gowns,  but  there  are  still  dinners  and 
butlers  and  dresses  very  much  as  before. 

No  change  is  as  yet  particularly  noticeable.  It  is 
really  easier  for  a  rich  woman  to  give  ten  thousand 
dollars  to  the  Red  Cross  than  to  give  up  her  maid; 
far  easier  to  work  several  hours  at  the  local  War  Relief 
than  to  surrender  the  chauffeur  and  the  motor  in 
which  she  drives  there.  These  thoughts  occurred  to 
me  as  my  wife  and  I  partook  of  the  war  dinner  pro- 
vided by  our  host,  a  meal  that  would  probably  have 
caused  a  considerable  elevation  of  Mr.  Hoover's  eye- 
brows. 

The  paper  that  morning  had  contained  a  table 
showing  the  comparative  wealth  and  man  power  of 
the  Central  Powers  and  the  Allies.  Everybody  had 
read  it,  and  since  it  was  so  striking,  Sanderson  had  cut 
it  out  and  kept  it. 

243 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 


UNITED    STATES    AND    ENTENTE    ALLIES 

Wealth 

Area 
(Sq  Miles) 

Population 

United  States, 
Alaska,  and 
Philippines 

$250,000,000,000 

130,000,000,000 
196,000,000,000 

3,741,828 

12,745,766 
12,268,253 

110,000,000 

437,500,000 
868,800,000 

British  Empire  — 
Ireland,  Canada, 
India,  Africa,  and 
Australasia. 

France  and  all  other 
Allies 

Total 

$576,000,000,000 

28,755,847 

1,416,300,000 

TEUTONIC  ALLIES 

Germany 

$80,000,000,000 
(no  estimate) 
25,000,000,000 

3,000,000,000 

208,780 
1,027,820 
260,034 

1,463,448 

65,000,000 
*14,000,000 
49,000,000 

36,000,000 

German  Colonies  :... 
Austria-Hungary.  ,  .  , 
Turkey    and    Bul- 
garia 

Total  .... 

$108,000,000,000 
576,000,000,000 
51,900,000,000 

2,960,082 

28,755,847 
11,017,182 

164,000,000 
1,416,300,000 
176,400,000 

Total,  U.  S.  and 
Entente  Allies  .  .  . 
Total,  Neutral 
Powers 

Grand  Total 

$735,900,000,000 

52,733,121 

1,756,700,000 

COMPARISON 

United  States  and 
Entente  Allies... 
Teutonic  Allies  
Neutral  Powers  ... 

78.3% 
14.7% 
7.0% 

73.5% 
5.6% 
20.9% 

80.7% 
9.3% 
10.0% 

*A  D  McLaren,  of  the  Manchester  Daily  Guardian,  says  (Atlantic 
Monthly,  Dec.,  1917)  that  there  was  In  1913  a  total  colonial  population 
of  Germans  of  24,389,  including  officers  and  soldiers  in  garrisons. 

244 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

"The  boches  haven't  a  chance!"  confidently  pro- 
claimed our  host  after  dinner  on  the  strength  of  the 
foregoing  figures.  "Not  a  chance!  It's  all  over  but 
the  shouting!  The  Allies  have  five  times  as  much 
money  and  eight  tunes  as  many  men." 

Unfortunately,  the  average  New  York  bond-broker 
is  not  only  statistically  sophisticated  but  sceptical  as 
well. 

"My  dear  Sanderson/'  I  returned,  "I  don't  wish 
to  discourage  you,  but  those  figures  are  highly  mis- 
leading. A  hundred  thousand  men  on  the  firing-line 
are  worth  a  hundred  million  in  Siam,  Bechuanaland, 
and  Hindu  Kush.  You've  got  to  have  your  men  where 
they'll  be  some  good  to  you.  So  you  can  just  elimi- 
nate all  the  Hottentots  and  Esquimaux  that  are  fig- 
ured in  on  the  Entente  side  of  the  balance-sheet.  And 
what  good  do  Russia's  one  hundred  and  eighty  mil- 
lions do  us?  Or  Japan's  seventy-two  millions,  for 
that  matter?  On  the  other  hand,  the  Teutonic  allies 
draw  on  populations  exclusively  within  their  own 
frontier  battle-line.  No;  you  can't  dope  out  the 
winner  on  any  such  general  basis  as  that,  interesting 
as  the  figures  may  be." 

Sanderson  seemed  unconvinced. 

"Well,  anyhow,"  he  argued,  "money  counts! 
Germany  can't  win  if  she's  only  got  one  hundred  and 
eight  billion  dollars  as  against  five  hundred  and 
seventy-six  billion  on  the  side  of  the  Allies.  Why, 

245 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

you  told  me  only  a  day  or  so  ago  that  the  United 
States  could  pay  the  interest  on  a  hundred-billion-dol- 
lar Liberty  Loan  at  four  per  cent  if  we  simply  gave  up 
—  what  was  it  ?  —  chewing-gum,  alcohol,  tobacco, 
snuff,  moving  pictures,  soda-water,  and  candy  1" 

"That's  quite  right,"  I  acquiesced,  complimented 
at  his  recollection.  "We  could  pay  the  interest" 

"Then  we  can  go  on  fighting  forever!"  he  an- 
nounced. "What's  the  paltry  five  billion  of  the  last 
Liberty  Loan  compared  with  what  the  United  States 
could  raise  by  taxation  or  voluntary  subscription  if  it 
really  set  out  to  do  it?" 

"Well,"  I  reminded  him,  "we  shall  have  a  good 
chance  to  find  out,  for  before  June  30, 1918,  the  United 
States  will  have  assumed  the  burden  of  raising  twenty- 
one  billions  of  dollars  as  its  first  year's  appropriation 
toward  winning  the  war.  That,  my  dear  sir,  is  more 
than  the  value  of  all  the  railroad  bonds  and  stocks  in 
the  entire  country.  It  is,  as  Mr.  Vanderlip  recently 
pointed  out,  only  five  billion  less  than  the  total  ex- 
penditures of  this  government  from  the  year  1791  to 
January  1,  1917,  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
six  years." 

My  wife,  who  was  sitting  with  us,  raised  her  hands 
in  dismay. 

"I  hear  what  you  say,  John,"  she  declared.  "But 
I  don't  know  what  it  means.  I  can't  take  it  in.  I 
wonder  if  any  man  can !" 

246 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

"There  is  only  one  who  pretends  to  do  so,"  I  re- 
plied. "And — maybe  he's  mistaken !" 

"All  the  same,"  insisted  Sanderson,  as  we  climbed 
up  the  stairs,  bedward,  "  take  it  from  me  we'll  find  the 
money  will  be  there  when  the  time  comes!  Do  you 
realize  that  if  everybody  in  the  United  States  gave 
only  ten  cents  a  week  to  the  government  it  would 
amount  to  five  hundred  and  seventy-two  million  dol- 
lars a  year?  We're  the  richest  nation  on  earth,  and 
our  money  is  going  to  win  the  war ! " 

"It  would  if  we  could  eat  bank-notes  or  shoot  dol- 
lars at  the  Germans!"  I  retorted  as  a  final  volley. 

"What  rot!"  he  yawned.  "Well!  Good  night! 
See  you  in  the  morning !  What  do  you  want  for  break- 
fast— ham  or  bacon?" 

•  ••••••• 

A  telegram  from  Morris  in  Washington  to  the  ef- 
fect that  he  would  be  at  the  New  York  office  on  Mon- 
day morning  brought  us  back  to  the  city  before  the 
expected  conclusion  of  our  visit.  But  during  the  time 
we  had  spent  at  Sanderson's  country  place  nothing 
had  occurred  to  alter  our  impression  that  our  host 
actually  believed  that  he  was  doing  his  full  duty  to  his 
country  and  living  up  to  the  highest  standards  of  pa- 
triotism, to  say  nothing  of  those  of  the  Food  Adminis- 
tration pledge-card  that  hung  in  the  coat-room  win- 
dow— so  long  as  he  ate  hot  corn  muffins  for  Sunday 
luncheon. 

247 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

I  fear  there  is  a  certain  elasticity  about  Mr.  Hoo- 
ver's requirements  readily  availed  of  by  the  self- 
indulgent.  We  cannot  afford  to  be  indefinite  if  we 
are  to  win  this  war.  There  is,  too,  a  very  general 
misconception  to  the  effect  that  by  saving  food  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  wishes  of  the  administrator  we  shall 
also  save  money.  Of  course  this  is  an  utterly  mis- 
taken idea.  Though  it  may  be  true  that  if  one  is  pa- 
triotic enough  to  save  white  flour,  meat,  and  bacon  in 
accordance  with  Mr.  Hoover's  request  he  may,  as  a 
result,  possibly  become  so  thrifty  that  he  will  econ- 
omize all  along  the  line,  and  so  incidentally  save 
money,  the  fact  remains  that  the  purpose  of  the  pledge- 
card  is  simply  to  induce  people,  so  far  as  possible,  to 
go  without  those  staples  of  food  of  which  there  is  a 
shortage  in  order  that  we  may  furnish  them  in  the 
needed  quantities  to  our  Allies  and  our  own  men 
abroad.  In  point  of  fact,  I  have  found  it  just  a  shade 
more  expensive  to  be  a  perfect  Hooverite  than  not  to 
be  one.  The  only  motive  for  Hooverism  as  such  is 
patriotism,  pure  and  simple. 

On  my  arrival  at  the  office  on  Monday  morning  I 
found  my  two  partners  already  there.  I  had  not  seen 
Morris  since  my  departure  for  the  Orient  in  Decem- 
ber, 1916,  and  I  was  surprised  at  the  change  in  him. 
He  had  grown  quite  gray  and  the  lines  on  his  face  and 
the  weariness  in  his  eyes  indicated  only  too  plainly 

248 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

the  strain  he  had  been  under  during  all  the  hot  sum- 
mer months  when,  instead  of  sitting  on  his  veranda  at 
Bar  Harbor,  he  had  toiled  at  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment, with  the  thermometer  hovering  around  a  hun- 
dred degrees.  There  was,  too,  a  gravity  about  his 
demeanor  that  was  new. 

He  quite  agreed  with  us,  he  said,  about  our  busi- 
ness. There  was  nothing  in  it  at  the  present  juncture 
from  any  point  of  view.  Besides,  the  government 
needed  clerks  and  stenographers,  and  by  discharging 
ours  we  should  be  releasing  labor.  Then  he  turned  to 
me  and  asked  what  I  was  going  to  do.  I  had  been 
asking  myself  that  question  for  some  time.  My  son 
Jack  was  already  on  the  other  side;  my  wife  was 
working  day  and  night  at  War  Relief,  and  my  daughter 
was  studying  in  a  business  college  eight  hours  a  day. 
I  was  the  only  person  in  my  family  who  wasn't  doing 
anything;  which  was  embarrassing,  since  I  had  done  a 
good  deal  of  talking  on  the  subject  of  patriotic  duty. 

What  I  really  wanted  to  do  was  to  get  as  near  the 
front  as  I  could — some  sort  of  a  military  job — but  my 
hopes  had  been  recently  shattered  when  the  medical 
examiner  of  one  of  the  big  life-insurance  companies 
had  turned  down  my  application  for  a  policy  on  the 
ground  that  I  had  a  bad  heart.  I  felt  like  a  spring 
chicken,  but  that  doctor  had  cooked  the  chicken,  so 
far  as  active  service  was  concerned. 

Of  course  I  could  get  busy  on  a  Liberty  Loan  cam- 
249 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

paign  or  a  Red  Cross  drive,  but  I  wanted  to  do  some- 
thing more  than  merely  solicit  subscriptions.  I  had 
volunteered  my  services  to  the  Food  Administration, 
but  its  officials  had  not  as  yet  seen  fit  to  avail  them- 
selves of  my  offer.  I  had  written  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, the  State  Department,  and  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment without  result. 

My  pride  had  suffered  a  distinct  shock  and  my  self- 
esteem  had  become  very  much  deflated  since  finding 
myself  so  little  appreciated.  I  had  always  rather 
fancied  myself  a  really  distinguished  sort  of  fellow — 
for  a  bond-broker.  Now  it  appeared,  however  dis- 
tinguished I  might  be,  I  wasn't  wanted — at  present, 
of  course  I 

"Yes,  John!  What  are  you  going  to  do?"  he  re- 
peated. "Isn't  it  time  you  started  on  something?" 

"That  is  the  question,"  I  replied.  "I  want  to  do 
the  work  that  I  am  best  fitted  for;  where  it  will  do 
the  most  good.  But  I  can't  seem  to  find  any  job. 
Middle-aged  men  are  a  drug  on  the  market.  Of  course 
I  can  roll  bandages  or  solicit  contributions;  but  I'd 
like  to  get  nearer  the  front." 

To  my  astonishment  my  ordinarily  pacific  partner 
scowled  and  pounded  a  fist  into  the  palm  of  his  other 
hand. 

"Nearer  the  front !"  he  cried  impatiently.  "Nearer 
the  front !  Anybody  who  can  make  people  understand 
that  it  isn't  getting  men  for  the  trenches  that's  our 
difficulty,  but  how  to  feed  and  arm  them,  and  to  keep 

250 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS- 


them  fed  and  armed — that  man  is  going  to  do  more 
for  this  country  than  any  ten  thousand  chaps  in 
khaki  who  account  for  ten  times  as  many  Germans. 
In  the  first  place,  of  course,  we  were  faced  with  the 
problem  of  how  to  raise  and  tram  our  armies.  We 
solved  that  pretty  well.  Our  next  task  was  to  raise 
money.  We've  done  better  than  we  expected.  There's 
been  an  encouraging  response.  The  future  looks 
bright  enough  in  that  respect.  But  what  people  don't 
understand  yet  is  that  furnishing  the  government  with 
money — even  twenty  billions  of  dollars — is  only  half, 
if  it's  even  that,  of  what  we've  got  to  do." 

"I  don't  fully  understand,"  I  interrupted.  "If  the 
government  is  given  the  money  to  spend,  why  can't  it 
go  out  and  buy  what  it  wants  and  hire  what  men  it 
needs?" 

"Because,"  answered  Morris,  "the  mere  fact  that 
we  turned  over  to  the  government  five  billion  dollars 
in  the  last  Liberty  Loan  won't  help  us  at  all  unless  the 
government,  in  its  turn,  can  exchange  the  money  for 
the  things  we  want — food,  uniforms,  guns,  labor. 
The  success  of  the  loan  merely  means  that  five  billion 
dollars  will  be  credited  to  the  government,  and  that 
the  bank  balances  of  the  bond  buyers  will  be  debited 
by  a  similar  amount.  Raising  money,  by  itself,  won't 
raise  a  single  potato  more  than  we  had  before. 

"  Of  course  it's  an  elementary  proposition,  but  people 
don't  seem  to  get  it  through  their  heads.  They  think 
in  terms  of  money  when  they  ought  to  think  in 

251 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

terms  of  goods  and  labor.  The  American  public  has 
an  idea  that  you  can  solve  any  problem  by  passing 
legislation  and  appropriating  money.  We  vote  a 
billion  dollars  for  aeroplanes  and  destroyers,  and  then 
sit  back  comfortably  with  the  idea  that  they're  al- 
ready bombing  Berlin  and  sinking  submarines.  It's  a 
delusion  of  grandeur.  Congress  can  Vote  money  until 
it's  black  in  the  face  and  yet  accomplish  nothing,  un- 
less the  people  supply  what's  really  needed — the  ma- 
terials and  the  men. 

"Now,  where  are  they  coming  from?  Remember 
that  our  mills  and  our  mines  are  producing  no  more 
than  heretofore  and  that  two  million  men  out  of  our 
thirteen  million  workers  have  been  drafted.  Let  us 
assume  that  we,  as  a  nation,  have  been  obliged  to  pro- 
duce for  our  efficient  support  a  quantity  of  essentials  we 
shall  call  x.  Well,  the  government  comes  along  and 
appropriates  twenty  billion  dollars — practically  all  of 
which  is  to  be  spent  in  this  country — to  carry  on  the 
war.  If,  after  it  is  raised,  all  the  money  is  to  be  used  for 
the  purposes  for  which  it  was  voted,  we  shall  have  to 
produce  this  year  not  only  the  quantity  x,  which  we 
absolutely  needed  before,  but  also  twenty  billion  more 
in  goods  and  labor.  Where  is  it  coming  from  ?  " 

"Preposterous!"  I  exclaimed.  The  proposition 
was  simplicity  itself,  but  it  seemed  utterly  impossible 
of  accomplishment.  "  It  can't  be  done ! J) 

"I  don't  know  whether  it  can  or  not,"  replied 
Morris.  "There  are  so  many  unknown  factors  in- 

252 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS- 


volved.  There  is  the  factor  of  accumulated  surplus 
wealth — the  factor  of  yearly  saving  in  the  past — for, 
of  course,  as  a  people  we  have  always  saved  a  pro- 
portion of  what  we  have  produced,  only  it  isn't  in  a 
form  that  can  help  us  much — houses,  railroads,  and 
so  on.  There  is  the  great  unknown  factor  of  how  far 
our  ten  million  physically  able  women  can  and  will 
take  the  place  of  men  and  how  far  the  men  who  have 
hitherto  been  regarded  as  too  old  can  be  made  useful. 

"There  is  going  to  be  a  tremendous  rejuvenation  of 
the  middle-aged.  The  age  limit  on  railroads,  for  in- 
stance, will  probably  be  pushed  up  five  years.  Old 
and  decrepit  men  will  be  utilized  for  the  ornamental 
sinecures,  such  as  doorkeeping. 

"Then  there  is  the  practically  unknown  factor  of  how 
much  x  really  is  and  how  much  of  our  total  annual 
production  has  been  for  non-essentials.  It  may  be 
much  larger  than  we  think.  And,  finally,  there  is  the 
unknown  factor  of  how  much  we,  as  a  people,  can  save 
over  and  above  what  we've  saved  before. 

"Well,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  it's  a  tremendous, 
staggering  question;  and  the  more  people  I  talk  to 
about  it  and  the  more  I  study  it  the  less  I  am  able  to 
come  to  any  conclusion  as  to  what  the  task  confront- 
ing us  actually  amounts  to  in  billions.  Congress  has 
appropriated  twenty  billions  of  dollars  for  war  pur- 
poses. Of  this  about  five  billion  will  go  for  soldiers' 
pay  and  similar  objects,  not  requiring  any  production 
to  meet  them;  but  the  balance  of  fifteen  billion  is  to 

253 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

be  spent  in  the  purchase  and  manufacture  of  war 
materials  and  in  other  ways  requiring  labor  and  pro- 
duction. Now,  assume  that  the  annual  pre-war  pro- 
duction of  the  United  States  was  twenty-five  billion, 
this  will  mean  an  added  production  of  fifteen  billion, 
or  a  total  of  forty  billion,  as  against  our  previous 
twenty-five.  How  are  we  going  to  supply  the  mate- 
rials and  labor  to  meet  this  new  and  unprecedented 
demand?  Well,  first  by  extending  and  speeding  up 
producing.  We  ought  to  be  able  to  increase  our  an- 
nual production  of  goods  and  labor  from  twenty-five 
to  thirty  billion.  That  is  only  an  increase  of  twenty 
per  cent.  But  that  leaves  a  deficit  of  ten  billion! 
Where  is  it  coming  from?  The  only  answer  is  that 
it  must  be  saved  !  We  must  save  forty  per  cent  of  the 
amount  of  our  annual  pre-war  production  of  twenty- 
five  billion— that  is,  we  must  deny  ourselves  and  re- 
lease to  the  government  goods  and  labor  amounting 
to  about  ten  billions  of  dollars !  Yet  it  is  a  sum  larger 
than  the  human  mind  can  comprehend." 

*  Estimated  annual  pre-war  production  of  United 

States  in  materials  and  labor $25,000,000,000 

Appropriations  during  first  year  of  war,  to  be 

expended  on  materials  and  labor 15,000,000,000 


Total  materials  and  labor  necessary  to  meet  (a) 
ordinary  requirements  and  (6)  first-year  ap- 
propriations (as  above) $40,000,000,000 

Increased  production  in  materials  and  labor. . . .     30,000,000,000 

Balance  of  materials  and  labor  it  is  necessary  to 
save  if  we  are  to  carry  out  our  war  programme  $10,000,000,000 

254 


"OF  SHOES-OF  SHIPS " 

"That  is  the  basis  of  Mr.  Vanderlip's  thrift  cam- 
paign and  his  saving  certificates,  isn't  it?"  asked 
Lord.  "The  theory  is  that  if  we  lend  the  money  to 
the  government  we  shall  have  just  so  much  less  left 
to  spend  on  ourselves,  and  so  will  have  to  go  without. 
As  you  say,  the  banking  transaction  doesn't  affect  the 
economic  situation.  There  isn't  any  more  flour  or 
labor  now  than  there  was  before  the  Liberty  Loan  was 
floated.  The  important  thing  is  going  without  the 
flour  and  labor — more  important  even  than  lending  to 
the  government  the  money  we  save  by  going  without." 

"  That's  it,  exactly ! "  declared  Morris.  "  It  isn't  the 
money  that  the  government  needs  so  much  as  the 
things— things  and  the  labor  to  make  'em;  and  we  can 
get  those  things  and  that  labor  by  inducing  idlers  to 
work,  accelerating  or  increasing  production,  or  by  sav- 
ing. Now  when  all  is  said  and  done,  practically  the 
only  way  to  enable  the  government  to  get  the  goods  and 
the  labor  it  needs  is  by  going  without  them  ourselves. 
As  Blackett  says:  *  Every  cent  of  private  expenditure 
that  is  not  really  necessary  for  health  and  efficiency 
involves  a  diminution  of  the  goods  and  services  avail- 
able for  winning  the  war.  Extravagance  and  waste 
are  treason.' 

"One  thing  is  certain.  The  government  may  have 
all  the  money  in  the  world  at  its  disposal,  but  unless 
those  who  control  the  goods  and  labor  will  release 
them  to  the  government,  our  boys  over  in  France  will 

255 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

lack  even  the  necessaries  of  life.  We  have  got  to  cut 
off  our  production  of  everything  the  government 
does  not  need  and  cut  down  our  consumption  of  every- 
thing else,  in  order  to  furnish  the  things  the  govern- 
ment must  have  to  carry  on  and  win  the  war. 

"Now,  the  very  first  requirement  is  ships;  ships 
to  get  our  armies  over  to  France;  ships  to  keep  them 
supplied  with  food  and  ammunition.  We've  got  the 
soldiers,  but  there  aren't  enough  ships  to  carry  them 
over.  The  neck  is  too  small  for  the  bottle.  Why? 
Because  private  enterprises  engaged  in  comparatively 
unimportant  work  are  taking  the  men  away  from  the 
shipyards  by  offering  higher  wages  than  the  latter  can 
afford.  With  the  German  submarines  sinking  ship- 
ping at  the  rate  of  six  million  tons  a  year  Congress 
has  authorized  the  construction  of  five  million  tons. 
Added  to  the  tonnage  in  the  yards,  which  we  have 
already  requisitioned,  this  makes  a  total  of  10,623,000 
of  deadweight  tonnage.  To  get  these  ships  afloat  we 
need  five  hundred  thousand  mechanics.  We  have 
less  than  two  hundred  thousand;  and,  at  that,  the 
various  yards  are  competing  with  one  another  for 
their  services.  Every  ship  once  in  the  water  will 
need  men  and  officers — one  hundred  thousand  for 
every  thousand  ships. 

"It  is  the  most  gigantic  task — the  most  vital  task 
— in  the  history  of  the  war.  To  fail  in  its  accomplish- 
ment means  defeat.  Yet  the  yards  are,  for  the  most 

256 


"OF  SHOES-OF  SHIPS " 

part,  working  only  one  shift  of  men  a  day  when  they 
ought  to  be  running  twenty-four  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four,  Sundays  and  holidays  included.  This 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  riveters  are  getting  as  high 
as  one  hundred  and  seventy-two  dollars  per  week! 
Not  far  from  Philadelphia  there's  a  big  shipyard  that 
ought  to  be  running  night  and  day.  It  can  only  get 
sixty  per  cent  of  the  labor  it  needs.  Its  total  force 
is  a  little  over  five  thousand  men.  Near  it  is  a  phono- 
graph-factory employing  eight  thousand  men.  The 
shipyards  could  utilize  thousands  of  those  phonograph 
workers  but  can't  get  them.  Yet  the  newspapers  hesi- 
tate about  going  after  the  talking-machine  fellows 
because  they  are  such  big  advertisers. 

"It's  the  same  situation  everywhere,"  he  con- 
tinued. "People  are  simply  asleep — that's  all!  The 
government  needs  five  thousand  stenographers  to-day 
in  Washington  and  seven  thousand  firemen.  When  I 
left  there  on  Friday  it  had  no  prospect  of  getting  them. 
It  needs  five  hundred  chauffeurs,  on  the  jump,  to  drive 
supply-trucks — and  it  has  to  wait;  and  yet  there  are 
ninety-two  thousand  chauffeurs  in  the  metropolitan 
district  of  New  York  alone ! 

"Night  and  day — day  and  night,"  went  on  Morris 
heatedly,  "the  guns  are  roaring  over  on  the  western 
front,  hurling  an  unceasing  torrent  of  shells  into  the 
German  lines.  Nine  million  dollars'  worth  of  shells 
cross  the  trenches  every  day.  The  war  has  become  a 

257 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

contest  of  workshops.  But  the  shops  lack  workers, 
while  rich  people  roll  round  in  their  motors — some  of 
them  with  two  men  on  the  box ! " 

"Really,  it's  almost  criminal!"  I  cried. 

"When  you  think  that  in  the  early  days  of  the  war 
whole  brigades  were  wiped  out  of  existence  for  lack 
of  artillery  support,  due  to  a  failure  of  ammunition, 
you  realize  that  it  is  criminal !  The  government  could 
get  forty-five  regiments  of  mechanics  out  of  New  York's 
chauffeur  class  alone.  If  we  gave  up  our  cars  the  fac- 
tories which  would  otherwise  be  making  the  new  mod- 
els for  next  year  could  either  release  their  men  for  the 
shipyards  or  could  be  converted  themselves  into  mu- 
nition works.  The  materials,  steel,  iron,  rubber,  nickel, 
copper,  leather,  woollen,  etc.,  would  be  available  for 
the  needs  of  the  army.  The  petrol  would  be  used  be- 
hind the  lines  at  the  front." 

"In  England,"  said  Lord,  "the  National  War  Sav- 
ings Committee  had  placed  at  its  disposal  an  immense 
amount  of  poster  space,  and  it  plastered  it  with  signs, 
among  others:  'Don't  ride  a  motor-car  for  pleasure.' 
Naturally,  timid  motorists  were  a  bit  nervous  lest 
they  might  be  attacked  on  the  highroads  by  the  in- 
dignant proletariat.  It  wasn't  a  bad  idea." 

Morris  laughed  grimly. 

"You  wait!  It  won't  be  a  question  of  posters. 
If  we  can't  get  men  to  build  the  ships  that  are  going 
to  win  this  war,  we'll  take  the  men  off  the  front  seats 

258 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

of  the  pleasure-cars — conscript  'em.  We'll  have  to  or 
our  boys  will  just  be  gun  fodder !  As  Mr.  Vanderlip 
says: 

"  'The  only  way  to  increase  the  number  of  men  and 
shells  and  supplies  available  at  the  front  to  win  the 
war  is  to  reduce  the  competition  of  private  individuals 
for  the  goods  and  services  that  the  belligerent  govern- 
ments require  for  war  needs.  This  can  be  done  only 
by  increasing  production  of  the  things  which  are  nec- 
essary and  reducing  the  consumption  of  everything 
else/  " 

"That  is  well  put/'  I  exclaimed.  "It  makes  clear 
Lloyd  George's  statement:  'Extravagance  costs  blood 
—the  blood  of  heroes.'  " 

But  Morris  did  not  heed  the  interruption. 

"I  know  of  a  very  large  carpet-factory  near  here 
which  closed  down  voluntarily  and  changed  over  its 
spindles — at  a  comparatively  trifling  cost — so  that  it 
now  manufactures  army  duck  for  tents,  wagon-covers, 
and  so  on.  If  the  owners  hadn't  done  so  of  their  own 
accord  they  ought  to  have  been  compelled  to  do  so 
by  the  action  of  the  public  in  refusing  to  buy  carpets. 

"But  no  matter  how  much  the  public  is  willing  to 
do  its  part  we've  still  got  to  reckon  with  the  laborer. 
Wages  have  been  doubled  in  many  businesses,  but  re- 
ports come  in  from  nearly  all  the  great  industries, 
mines,  and  shipyards  telling  of  men  who  refuse  to 
work  more  than  half-time — content,  under  the  im- 

259 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

proved  conditions,  to  make  as  much  in  five  hours  as 
they  formerly  did  in  ten.  Meantime  the  ship-building 
programme  lags,  coal  production  is  insufficient,  and 
industry  is  generally  undermanned  in  spite  of  the  in- 
crease in  wages.  Sooner  or  later  labor  conscription 
in  some  form  is  sure  to  result;  but  there  will  be  a 
fierce  political  struggle  before  it  is  secured." 

"That  would  be  pretty  drastic!"  hazarded  Lord. 

Morris  turned  on  him  sharply. 

"Suppose  you  needed  a  chauffeur  for  your  motor, 
you  wouldn't  try  to  induce  a  fellow  driving  an  am- 
bulance in  France  to  take  your  job,  would  you?  Or 
if  you  needed  a  mechanic  in  your  business  you  wouldn't 
try  and  tease  a  chap  out  of  a  factory  where  he  was 
turning  shells  for  the  Allies !  Well,  it's  the  same  thing 
if  you  keep  the  chauffeur  or  keep  the  mechanic." 

"Right!  "agreed  Lord. 

"There's  an  awful  lot  of  rot  talked  about  'business 
as  usual'!  There  won't  be  any  business  if  we  lose 
this  war!  We've  got  to  have  ships — ships — SHIPS! 
To  quote  Vanderlip  again:  'The  person  who  buys  an 
unnecessary  thing,  however  small  its  cost  and  however 
well  able  he  is  to  pay  for  it,  is  not  helping  the  govern- 
ment by  going  on  with  "business  as  usual,"  but  is 
upon  the  contrary  competing  with  the  government 
for  goods  and  services.  The  article  he  purchases  may 
be  of  a  character  altogether  different  from  the  things 
the  government  requires,  but  labor  must  be  used  in 

260 


"OF  SHOES-OF  SHIPS " 

producing  it,  whatever  it  is;  and  labor  that  is  used  to 
produce  the  needless  thing  is  labor  taken  away  from 
the  great  task  of  producing  necessary  goods.'  I've 
got  here  a  compilation  by  the  Federal  Bureau  of 
Labor  statistics  showing  the  number  of  workers  on 
the  pay-rolls  at  the  end  of  August,  1917,  as  compared 
with  August,  1916,  a  year  ago.  They  show  a  reduc- 
tion hi  all  the  industries  examined  except  ready-made 
clothing  and  automobile  manufacturing. 

"The  rich  have  been  among  the  first  to  give  them- 
selves and  their  sons  to  the  country.  Now  it  is  up  to 
them  to  set  the  example  of  sacrificing  their  comfort 
and  convenience  to  win  the  war.  The  poor  man  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  give  up  his  little  luxuries  or  cut 
down  his  pleasures  if  he  sees  the  rich  woman  buying 
furs  and  jewelry,  and  motoring  around  with  a  footman 
beside  the  driver  on  the  box  of  her  limousine.  She's 
got  to  walk !  And  it's  up  to  you,  John,  to  make  her !" 

His  face  cleared  and  a  smile  broke  over  it. 

"I've  got  your  job  cut  out  for  you,  old  man !  You 
must  be  the  prophet  of  this  new  doctrine — that  the 
people  at  home  must  make  sacrifices  to  save  the  lives 
of  the  boys  in  the  trenches;  that  money-savers  are  life- 
savers.  You  must  educate  the  people  to  the  fact 
that  just  as  the  soldiers  have  got  to  be  drilled  and  dis- 
ciplined, so  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  got 
to  be  drilled  and  disciplined  into  a  great  universal 
army  of  savers!" 

261 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"It's  a  great  cause!" 

"The  greatest  in  the  history  of  the  nation  1" 

"I'll  do  what  I  can!"  I  agreed  heartily.  "I  can 
see  already  how  easy  it  would  be  to  release  an  enor- 
mous amount  of  materials  and  labor  by  a  slight  in- 
dividual sacrifice."  * 

"One  of  the  easiest  ways  would  be  for  every  family 
to  reduce  the  number  of  the  servants  employed  in  its 

*  The  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue  indicates 
that  the  people  of  the  United  States  spent,  during  the  fiscal  year 
ending  June  30,  1917,  upon 

Whiskey $576,328,361 

Beer 1,518,237,725 

Cigars 460,845,055 

Cigarettes 183,175,150 

Tobacco  (smoking  and  chewing) 289,746,087 

Snuff 22,995,538 

This  is  a  total  of $3,051,327,916 

This  shows  the  "economic  slack''  that  could  be  taken  up  if 
necessary.  But  it  doesn't  stop  there,  by  any  means,  If  the 
men  did  not  smoke,  chew,  and  drink,  their  wives  and  children 
would  still  abandon  themselves  to  the  delights  of  chewing-gum, 
soda-water,  candy,  and  the  movies.  A  recognized  authority  puts 
these  hardly  vital  expenditures  at  the  following  figures  for  the 
nation: 

Chewing-gum $50,000,000 

Candy 300,000,000 

Soda-water 200,000,000 

Moving  pictures 450,000,000 

Total $1,000,000,000 

Add  for  tobacco  and  liquor  (as  above) 3,000,000,000 

Total $4,000,000,000 

Four  billion  dollars  would  be  the  interest  on  a  Liberty  Loan  of 
one  hundred  billion  dollars.  We  expect  to  put  the  Kaiser  where 
he  belongs  for  considerably  less  than  that.  We  do  not  need  to 
worry  about  mere  money. 

262 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

household,"  answered  Morris.  "There  are  sixty 
thousand  servant-girls  in  this  city  alone.  Look  at  the 
hundreds  of  able-bodied  men  employed  to  walk  up 
and  down  in  livery  in  front  of  apartment-houses,  thea- 
tres, and  stores,  the  thousands  of  scene-shifters,  elec- 
tricians, ticket-sellers,  painters,  ushers,  and  doormen 
at  the  theatres.  And  I  can't  help  reverting  to  those 
ninety-two  thousand  chauffeurs !  But  there  isn't  any 
use  trying  to  particularize.  There  should  be  no  lux- 
uries bought  or  sold.  We  should  cherish  our  coal  and 
wood  as  if  they  were  precious  metals.  Indeed,  the 
fuel  administrator  and  the  priority  board  are  con- 
sidering the  curtailment  of  the  use  of  coal  and  coke  in 
the  production  of  eleven  important  commodities, 
namely,  pleasure  vehicles,  brewery  products,  candy, 
toys,  table  glassware,  pottery,  athletic  goods,  jewelry, 
silverware,  window-glass,  electric  signs,  and  electric- 
sign  lighting.  Whoever  saves,  helps.  Every  time  we 
spend  anything  it  means  that  somebody  has  to  work 
for  us.  Whenever  you  refrain  from  travelling  you 
save  the  coal  used  for  producing  the  motive  power  of 
either  steam  or  electric  roads,  and  gasolene  for  the 
buses  and  taxis.  If  people  walked  more  instead  of 
riding,  fewer  public  conveyances  would  have  to  be 
run,  and  the  labor  of  those  who  run  them  could  be 
diverted  to  more  useful  employment. 

"The  British  committee  have  put  it  in  a  nutshell 
when  they  say:  'To  save  money  is  to  release  labor, 

263 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

goods,  and  services  for  other  purposes.  If  we  lend 
the  money  we  save  to  the  nation,  we  lend  to  the  na- 
tion the  power  to  command  the  labor,  goods,  and 
services  that  we  have  released.'  You  can't  state  it 
any  better.  We  must  all  save  on  everything!  As 
soon  as  we  have  enough  of  anything — that  is,  as  soon 
as  the  point  of  efficiency  has  been  reached — we  should 
save.  The  chief  things  to  do  without  are  those  that 
do  not  promote  efficiency — the  non-essentials.  Pianos, 
for  instance — jewelry,  for  which,  by  the  way,  we  spend 
two  hundred  million  dollars  every  year  in  the  United 
States — furniture,  house  decorations,  pictures,  hang- 
ings— the  list  is  legion ! 

"The  men  who  have  made  watches  and  clocks  must 
be  put  at  making  time-fuses.  Those  who  machined 
the  cylinders  for  automobile-engines  must  turn  out 
shells  and  guns.  The  iron-workers  who  have  been 
employed  in  the  construction  of  skyscrapers  must  be- 
come ship-builders.  The  spinners  and  weavers  who 
made  expensive  dress-fabrics  must  manufacture  khaki 
and  cotton  duck.  The  thousands  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  men  who  have  hitherto  been  engaged 
in  making  and  distributing  such  non-essentials  as  per- 
fumery, sporting-goods,  furniture,  expensive  china, 
silks,  laces,  pictures  (both  stationary  and  moving), 
and  the  scores  of  other  things  that  are  paid  for  but 
do  not  contribute  to  our  health  or  efficiency  must  be 
freed  to  work  and  fight  for  the  nation." 

264 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

"There's  one  thing  on  which  the  women  can  come 
in  strong,"  interjected  Lord,  "and  that's  clothes. 
They  should  only  allow  themselves  one  evening  dress. 
And  by  universal  consent  there  should  be  no  new 
styles  until  the  war  is  over." 

"In  England,"  assented  Morris,  "they  put  up 
placards  all  over  London,  reading: 

'BAD  FORM  IN  DRESS! 

To  DRESS  EXTRAVAGANTLY  IN  WARTIME  IS 
NOT  ONLY  UNPATRIOTIC — IT  is 

BAD  FORM!' 

That  got  Jem !     Even  the  women  who  were  selfish 
slackers  made  themselves  look  as  dowdy  as  possible. 

"There  isn't  any  beginning  or  end  to  it.  There's 
a  real  shortage  in  sugar,  for  instance,  but  there  wouldn't 
be  if  it  were  not  for  the  preposterous  amount  which 
we  Americans  eat.  The  Department  of  Commerce 
estimates  that  before  the  war  the  per-capita  con- 
sumption of  sugar  was  sixteen  pounds  in  Germany, 
twenty-eight  in  France,  thirty  in  Great  Britain,  and 
about  fourteen,  I  think,  in  Italy.  Now,  our  per-capita 
consumption  of  sugar  in  1880  was  thirty-nine  and  one- 
half  pounds,  and  it  has  increased  to  such  an  extent  that 
it  is  to-day  eighty-one  pounds  for  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  the  United  States.  We  could  cut  our  demand 
in  half,  and  then  be  using  more  than  England  did 
before  the  war.  Then  there's  leather " 

Lord  laughed. 

265 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

"  'The  time  has  come/  the  Walrus  said, 
'To  talk  of  many  things; 
Of  shoes — of  ships — of  sealing-wax — 
Of  cabbages — and  kings  1'  " 

he  quoted. 

"If  we  look  out  for  the  shoes  and  the  ships,  the 
kings  will  be  taken  care  of  in  due  course,"  smiled 
Morris.  "But  there's  one  final  factor  that  you  will 
have  to  deal  with,  John.  You  will  find  that  all  the 
manufacturers  of  luxuries  and  unnecessaries — and 
the  unessentials  far  outnumber  the  luxuries — will 
agree  with  you  up  to  a  certain  point,  will  often,  in 
fact — like  the  automobile-manufacturers — go  more 
than  half  way  in  their  co-operation,  but — nobody 
wants  to  be  put  out  of  business.  The  jewellers,  for 
instance,  have  pretty  consistently  declined  to  take 
orders  for  things  made  of  platinum  in  view  of  the 
government's  need  of  it.  But  they  want  to  go  on 
making  jewelry!  Now,  jewelry  won't  help  win  the 
war.  On  the  other  hand,  those  jewellers — the  work- 
men I  mean,  of  course — could  be  utilized  by  the  gov- 
ernment in  making  the  more  delicate  parts  of 
aeroplanes.  Every  dressmaker,  perfumer,  graphophone 
manufacturer,  jeweller,  every  maker  of  things  not  ab- 
solutely essential  to  the  efficiency  and  health  of  the 
people — or  at  any  rate  to  the  extent  that  his  out- 
put is  not  needed  for  national  efficiency — should  be 
obliged  by  the  fact  that  the  people  deny  themselves 

266 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

his  particular  luxury  to  reduce  the  number  of  his  em- 
ployees. These  will  gradually  find  other  employment. 
The  lace-maker,  fitter,  gem-cutter,  turner  will  shift 
about  into  other  sorts  of  work;  everybody  will  'move 
along  one'  until  at  the  end  of  the  line  there  will  be 
one  more  riveter  in  the  shipyard.  We  must  not  wait 
for  the  men  themselves  to  do  it.  It  wouldn't  be 
human  nature.  They  wouldn't  know  how,  or  they'd 
think  they  didn't.  It  must  be  accomplished  by  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand — and  we  control  the  de- 
mand. Go  to  it,  John,  old  boy !  Your  work  is  cut 
out  for  you!" 

"Yes,"  I  assented,  "my  work  is  cut  out  for  me! 
But  what  shall  I  say  if  one  of  these  jewellers  or  per- 
fumers asks  me  how  he  is  going  to  live?" 

Morris's  face  grew  stern. 

"Plenty  of  men  are  going  into  the  trenches  to 
die,"  he  thundered.  "The  war  must  be  fought  here 
as  well  as  at  the  front.  One  man  in  the  shipyards  to- 
day is  worth  three  in  the  trenches !" 

*  "We  are  at  war;  and  for  some  reason  the  business  interests 
have  not  yet  chosen  to  realize  it.  Nine-tenths  of  the  business 
men  of  the  country  are  either  preaching  'business  as  usual'  or 
are  urging  the  people  to  spend  freely  and  extravagantly,  because 
they  think  the  circulation  of  money  will  win  the  war.  The  chief 
reason  for  the  terrible  railroad  congestion  has  been  the  effort  to 
carry  on  the  normal  traffic  of  peace,  which  before  the  war  began 
was  overtaxing  the  railroad  facilities,  and  to  add  to  it  the  tre- 
mendous new  war  traffic  without  increasing  the  facilities.  And 
it  could  not  and  cannot  be  done. 

"When  Germany  entered  the  war  the  whole  industrial  system 
of  the  empire  was  changed.  Even  the  railroad  system  was  com- 

267 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Yet  in  the  face  of  the  present  exigency  people  con- 
tinue to  waste  fuel  and  labor  for  their  mere  pleasure. 
Only  this  morning  I  received  this  letter: 

'BURLINGTON,  N.  C.,  Dec.  13,  1917. 

This  morning  a  party  of  hunters  from  the  North  reached 
Greensboro,  N.  C.,  too  late  to  catch  the  morning  train  going 
east,  due  to  arrive  here  about  nine  o'clock.  As  no  other  train 
is  operated  until  the  afternoon,  which  reaches  here  at  5  P.  M.,  a 
special  train  was  chartered  consisting  of  one  large  locomotive 
and  two  cars. 

This  appears  to  me  a  most  outrageous  misuse  of  railroad 
equipment  and  fuel.  All  of  the  cotton-mills  in  this  vicinity 
have  had  coal  confiscated  from  them  in  wholesale  quantities 
"for  the  operation  of  Government  troop-trains,  etc.,"  our  mill 
having  lost  in  this  manner  about  thirty  car-loads,  or  sufficient 
to  run  us  for  over  three  months. 

It  is  absolutely  useless  to  protest,  as  the  Southern  Railway 
has  the  legal  right  to  seize  this  coal,  but  when  they  use  a  portion 

pletely  reorganized,  a  fact  that  few  people  seem  to  know.  The 
dozens  of  small  railway  systems  existing  in  and  operated  by  the 
separate  German  states  were  taken  over  by  the  imperial  govern- 
ment, and  welded  together  into  a  single  great  unified  system  under 
the  control  of  a  single  administrative  authority.  Passenger  traf- 
fic was  cut  ruthlessly,  and  the  production  of  the  unnecessary  and 
the  less  necessary  articles  of  ordinary  consumption  was  immedi- 
ately restricted,  or  stopped  altogether.  There  has  scarcely  been 
a  piece  of  furniture  made  in  Germany  since  the  war  began. 
England  tried  'business  as  usual,'  but  soon  discovered  the  mistake. 

"What  have  we  done?  Our  only  effort  to  curb  the  'business- 
as-usual'  doctrine  has  been  confined  to  the  solitary  preaching  of 
a  few  far-seeing  and  thoughtful  men  such  as  Frank  Vanderlip. 
They  have  urged  voluntary  economy  as  a  means  of  cutting  down 
the  production  of  less  essential  articles. 

"How  have  the  newspapers  treated  the  campaign  for  voluntary 
economy?  There  is  not  a  newspaper  in  New  York  which  has, 
on  its  editorial  pages,  whole-heartedly  and  earnestly,  day  after 
day,  supported  this  movement.  The  Hearst  papers,  at  the  rate 
of  about  one  huge  editorial  a  week,  have  even  encouraged  ex- 

268 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

of  It  to  cater  to  the  luxurious  demand  of  wealthy  sportsmen  in  a 
community  which  is  about  to  freeze  to  death  it  is  enough  to  turn 
the  people  into  raving  Bolsheviki.  Will  you  not  please  give 
this  fact  publicity,  withholding,  of  course,  the  name  of  your  in- 
formant but  mentioning  the  railroad  and  the  points  of  origin 
and  destination  of  the  special. 

I  think  this  gives  a  fine  opportunity  for  some  constructive 
criticism  of  the  so-called  Fuel  Administration. 

As  I  walked  up-town  that  afternoon,  pondering  on 
the  importance  of  the  task  in  which  I  was  to  take  a 
part,  I  thought  of  the  privations  undergone  for  the 
sake  of  victory  during  the  Civil  War,  of  which  I  had 
often  heard  my  father  speak. 

"My  wife  and  I,"  said  Asa  Gray  in  1862,  "have 
scraped  up  five  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  all  we  can 
scrape,  and  lent  it  to  the  United  States." 

Lowell  wrote  in  a  private  letter:  "I  had  a  little 

travagance  and  foolish  expenditure,  and  they  have  endeavored 
to  prejudice  the  public  against  Mr.  Vanderlip's  teaching  by 
asserting  that  his  doctrine  of  economy,  if  followed  out,  would 
increase  the  earnings  of  the  banks.  An  advertisement  appearing 
in  the  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger  stated  that  the  campaign  to 
encourage  economy  was  a  part  of  the  German  propaganda  in 
this  country !  The  advertiser  was  a  jeweler. 

"' Business  as  usual'  is  having  its  result  in  choked  terminals, 
car  shortages,  and  coal  famines.  The  public  press,  which  has 
openly  or  tacitly  supported  this  infamous  and  injurious  doctrine, 
is  as  much  responsible  for  Garfield's  order  as  any  other  agency. 

"Until  we  can  go  directly  to  the  cause  of  all  our  troubles,  the 
stupid  and  senseless  production  of  goods  which  can  be  dispensed 
with  during  the  war,  we  shall  never  be  able  to  end  railroad  con- 
gestion, and  we  shall  not  be  able  to  do  our  proper  share  in  the 
war.  Until  the  editors  of  a  few  newspapers  realize  this  fact  and 
begin  to  say  so,  the  present  extravagance  and  hopeless  waste 
and  confusion  will  go  on." — T.  W.  VAN  METRE  in  The  New  Re- 
public, Feb.  2,  1918. 

269 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

Italian  bluster  of  brushwood-fire  yesterday  morning; 
but  the  times  are  too  hard  with  me  to  allow  of  such 
an  extravagance  except  on  the  brink  of  gelation." 

"The  first  of  January,"  wrote  Emerson  in  1862, 
"has  found  me  in  quite  as  poor  a  plight  as  the  rest  of 
the  Americans.  Not  a  penny  from  my  books  since 
last  June,  which  usually  yield  five  or  six  hundred  a 
year;  no  dividends  from  the  banks  or  from  Lidia's 
Plymouth  property.  Then  almost  all  income  from 
lectures  has  quite  ceased;  so  that  your  letter  found  me 
in  a  study  how  to  pay  three  or  four  hundred  dollars 
with  fifty.  ...  I  have  been  trying  to  sell  a  wood-lot 
at  or  near  its  appraisal,  which  would  give  me  something 
more  than  three  hundred,  but  the  purchaser  does  not 
appear.  Meantime  we  are  trying  to  be  as  unconsum- 
ing  as  candles  under  an  extinguisher;  and  'tis  fright- 
ful to  think  how  many  rivals  we  have  in  distress  and 
in  economy.  But  far  better  that  this  grinding  should 
go  on  bad  and  worse  than  we  be  driven  by  any  impa- 
tience into  a  hasty  peace,  or  any  peace  restoring  the  old 
rottenness" 

Later  that  evening,  happening  to  pass  a  famous 
Broadway  hotel,  I  entered  the  foyer  to  observe  what 
change,  if  any,  the  war  had  brought  about  there. 
It  was  crowded  with  men  and  women  in  evening  dress 
coming  to  supper  after  the  theatre.  Down  in  the 
grill-room  the  dancing-floor  was  packed  with  couples 
who  were  turkey  and  fox  trotting  to  the  crash  of  a 

270 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

jazz  band;  while  those  who  could  not  find  room  to 
dance  sat  laughing,  smoking,  and  drinking  as  if 
thousands  of  their  fellow  human  beings  were  not  at 
that  very  moment  dying  upon  the  blood-drenched 
battle-fields  of  France,  Belgium,  and  Venetia. 

Suddenly  the  lights  were  turned  off  and  a  smirking 
human  doll,  with  a  painted  face  and  curls  hanging 
down  her  bare  back,  began  to  dance  suggestively  be- 
neath a  spotlight,  beckoning  and  posturing  before 
the  men  at  the  tables.  Disgusted,  I  ascended  to  the 
foyer  and  found  myself  face  to  face  with  the  manager. 

"Hello,  Mr.  Stanton!"  he  cried.  "Been  down  for 
a  little  turn?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered  savagely,  "and  I  got  one — but 
not  the  kind  you  mean." 

"Sh!"  he  protested.  "Look  here;  we're  doing 
everything  humanly  possible  to  save!  It's  almost  a 
joke  what  we  give  our  patrons.  We've  'saved  every- 
thing out  of  the  pig  except  the  squeal/  I  guess  that 
Mr.  Hoover  will  agree  that  no  body  of  men  has  re- 
sponded so  nobly  to  his  appeal  for  food  conservation 
as  the  hotel  men !" 

I  laughed  a  hollow  laugh. 

"I  counted  forty  waiters  serving  ices  and  cham- 
pagne," I  remarked  shortly.  "Are  you  aware  that 
there's  such  a  shortage  of  wire  that  we  may  not  be 
able  to  keep  our  armies  properly  supplied  for  the 
building  of  entanglements  ?  Some  day  the  government 

271 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

may  step  in  here  and  stop  your  elevators  in  order  to 
conserve  the  wire  in  the  lifting  cables!  How  would 
you  like  that?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Well,"  he  answered,  "have  your  joke!  But  you 
don't  want  us  to  close  up,  do  you  ? " 

I  sat  for  a  long  time  before  the  fire  after  I  got  home 
before  going  to  bed,  thinking  of  what  I  had  heard 
and  seen  that  day.  I  recalled  how  a  well-known  Eng- 
lishman had  said  that  his  countrymen  had  made  war 
for  a  year  in  their  frock  coats,  and  then  suddenly  had 
had  to  get  down  to  their  shirt-sleeves. 

After  I  had  retired  I  was  unable  to  sleep.  For 
hours  I  tossed  from  side  to  side,  and  then  at  last  I 
must  have  begun  to  dream,  for  I  found  myself  upon 
the  front,  somewhere  near  the  Woevre,  looking  for 
Jack.  Crouched  in  the  darkness  of  a  narrow  passage 
between  two  irregular  walls  of  clay,  I  struggled  forward 
to  find  my  son. 

"Bend  lower!"  muttered  the  vague  shadow  crawl- 
ing beside  me.  Just  ahead,  in  mid-air,  the  German 
star  shells  were  breaking  one  after  another  in  quick 
succession,  casting  momentarily  a  ghastly  light  on 
the  inferno  beyond  the  parapets.  The  dull  pain  in  my 
ears  became  agony  whenever  one  of  the  boche  projec- 
tiles burst  with  a  shattering  roar  in  the  black  waste 
behind  us.  The  earth  rocked  with  the  thunder  of  the 
guns,  and  underneath  the  higher  rattle  of  the  mi- 

272 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

trailleuses,  the  sharp  detonations  of  the  shrapnel,  and 
the  bark  of  the  field-pieces  there  was  a  constant 
rumbling  diapason  in  which  all  sounds  merged 
into  a  deep  bellow  like  that  of  a  hungry  war  mon- 
ster. 

I  stumbled  on  through  the  communicating  trench, 
following  my  guide  by  the  reflection  of  the  German 
flares  and  ever  and  again  stepping  upon  human  hands 
and  feet,  some  of  which  were  withdrawn,  while  others 
offered  no  resistance  save  that  of  inanimate  bone  and 
flesh.  Once  I  slipped  in  bloody  mire  and  fell  flat  upon 
something  soft.  My  companion  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders as  I  struggled  to  my  feet. 

"They  haven't  given  us  any  flash-lights  for  months !" 
he  muttered.  "Put  your  hand  on  my  back." 

"Where  is  your  coat?"  I  asked,  for  it  was  snowing 
and  the  icy  mud  was  above  our  ankles. 

"We  have  no  coats!"  he  answered  mockingly. 

We  crept  on,  it  seemed  by  inches,  until  we  debouched 
into  the  firing  trench,  under  the  parapet  of  which  lay 
what  seemed  to  be  a  row  of  human  forms  in  agony. 

"Where  are  your  doctors?  Your  ambulances?" 
I  demanded. 

He  laughed  heartlessly. 

"We  have  no  ambulances — and  no  chauffeurs." 

I  pressed  my  hands  to  my  temples,  for  I  seemed  to 
be  going  mad. 

"Where  is  my  son?"  I  shrieked. 
273 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

A  star  shell  burst  over  our  heads  and  he  pointed 
to  a  hatless  figure  in  tattered  khaki  on  the  firing  shelf. 

"There!  "he  replied. 

"Jack!"  I  called  in  terror.    "Jack,  come  down!" 

He  turned  and  looked  at  me  strangely — without 
recognition.  He  was  white,  haggard,  tortured,  utterly 
different  from  the  day  when  I  bade  him  good-by.  I 
fell  on  my  knees  in  the  mud  and  stretched  implor- 
ing arms  upward. 

"It's  I — your  father !  Don't  you  know  me,  Jack?" 
I  cried  in  a  voice  I  could  not  recognize  as  mine. 

"We  have  no  fathers!"  he  retorted  bitterly.  "And 
no  mothers !  We  have  nobody ! " 

The  light  faded  away  and  the  night  clapped  down 
again  upon  the  trench  and  its  occupants.  Weird  shapes 
stumbled  past,  but  my  own  legs  seemed  fastened  im- 
movably in  the  mud.  I  tried  to  shout  but  could  not. 
Then  a  few  feet  beyond  where  I  stood,  I  saw  by  the 
light  of  a  flare  a  gap  in  the  parapet  where  some  huge 
shell  had  blown  it  in. 

Suddenly,  above  the  tumult,  a  voice  yelled: 

"  Gas  coming !    Get  your  masks ! " 

I  turned  helplessly  to  my  guide,  trembling  with 
fear.  But  again  he  laughed  in  his  mocking  way. 

"We  have  no  masks!"  he  answered  harshly.  "We 
have  no  guns  nor  ammunition!  Don't  you  see  that 
only  the  Germans  are  firing?  Look  through  that 
hole!  There  are  no  entanglements — for  we  have  no 

274: 


"OF  SHOES— OF  SHIPS " 

wire !  There  is  nothing  to  keep  the  boches  from  rush- 
ing us !  We  have  no  bombs,  no  pistols,  no  rifles !  There 
are  no  tents  nor  ambulance  hoods — for  we  have  no 
duck !  There  are  no  tools  to  repair  our  machinery — 
and  no  mechanics !  We  have  no  food !  We  have  noth- 
ing but  our  lives,  and  those  are  being  thrown  away, 
because  the  people  at  home  are  still  asleep!" 


275^ 


IX 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

"And  after  the  earthquake  a  fire;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the 
fire:  and  after  the  fire  a  still  small  voice." 

It  is  a  strange  thing  to  come  back  to  New  York 
after  an  absence  of  nearly  a  year  to  find  aeroplanes 
buzzing  overhead,  a  captured  U-boat  in  Central  Park, 
service-flags  covered  with  stars  on  every  other  build- 
ing, and  to  bump  into  one's  family  doctor  on  the  street- 
corner  in  the  uniform  of  a  full-fledged  major.  It  is 
even  queerer  to  have  one's  wife  going  afoot  to  market 
every  morning  with  a  knitting-bag  on  her  arm  (camou- 
flaging the  pot-roast  and  chuck  steak),  and  one's 
daughter  hurrying  off  to  a  business  college  to  juggle 
all  day  with  dots,  dashes,  and  pothooks.  These  things 
for  a  returned  Wall  Street  bond-broker  are  strange 
indeed — but  strangest  of  all  is  the  new  inward  and 
spiritual  grace  of  which  they  seem  to  be  the  outward 
and  visible  signs. 

The  other  day  I  was  riding  up-town  in  the  local 
Subway,  where  for  several  years  I  have  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  study  contemporary  manners.  Up  to  the 
time  when  I  left  the  city  ten  months  ago  the  male 

276 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

travellers  had  consisted  of  two  classes:  those  who 
frankly  refused  to  surrender  their  seats  to  a  woman, 
and  those  who  strove  to  hide  their  incivility  by  pre- 
tending not  to  see  her.  I  will  not  state  to  which  I 
belonged.  At  Canal  Street  a  middle-aged  woman 
carrying  a  bundle  entered  the  car.  She  obviously 
did  not  expect  to  be  offered  a  seat,  and  had  quite 
naturally  annexed  a  strap,  when  a  young  man  hi 
uniform  arose  at  the  other  end  of  the  car  and  ten- 
dered her  his  place.  Before,  in  her  embarrassment, 
she  could  either  accept  or  decline  it  no  less  than  half 
a  dozen  passengers  nearer  her  had  arisen  and  offered 
her  their  seats.  From  that  moment  until  the  train 
reached  the  Grand  Central  Station  there  was  a  con- 
test in  politeness  going  on  in  that  car  which  rivalled 
the  etiquette  of  King  Rene  at  his  "Court  of  Love." 

There  is  a  new  spirit  abroad  to  which  everybody, 
from  the  sandwich-man  to  the  railroad  president,  re- 
sponds— a  spirit  of  cheerful  co-operation.  People  are 
more  friendly,  they  are  politer,  generally  more  decent. 
Respect  for  the  uniform  has  jacked  us  all  up  several 
pegs.  It  has  acted  as  a  moral  tonic  for  the  whole  coun- 
try, just  as  it  has  for  the  men  who  wear  it. 

We  of  the  cities,  at  any  rate,  had  become  bored 
with  the  old-fashioned  virtues  and  callous  to  the  out- 
ward observances  of  gentility.  It  was  fashionable  to 
be  cynical.  The  passion  for  money-getting  in  the  men 
of  my  own  class,  which  had  numbed  our  spiritual  fibre, 

277 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

had  permeated  the  whole  nation,  and  had  engendered 
wide-spread  industrial  discontent  and  jealousy.  As 
I  have  said,  we  were  drunk  with  prosperity.'  Our  ma- 
terialism was  a  byword  among  nations — themselves 
hardly  less  material. 

There  had  never  been  so  much  money  anywhere 
in  the  world  before.  To-day  skilled  labor  is  still 
weltering  in  it.  Harvesters  and  miners  ride  to  work 
as  a  matter  of  course  in  their  own  motors.  A  couple 
of  weeks  ago  in  Miami,  Arizona,  I  counted  thirty- 
three  automobiles  standing  in  a  row,  belonging  to 
workmen,  outside  the  crusher  of  the  Inspiration  Mine. 
In  the  factory  towns  the  girls  spent  their  money  on 
gloves,  laces,  and  jewelry.  There  was  a  growing 
sexual  immorality  among  the  former  poorer  working 
class  which  was  now  so  rapidly  becoming  well-to-do. 
Girls  who  could  not  buy  jewelry  and  take  trips  to  New 
York  out  of  then-  own  savings,  did  so  out  of  the  earn- 
ings of  men.  Their  ambition  was  to  become  movie 
actresses  at  fabulous  salaries.  The  "Vamp"  was 
their  ideal.  Debauchery,  eugenics,  and  degeneracy  be- 
came common  subjects  for  the  screen,  the  stage,  and 
periodical  literature.  There  was  a  flood  of  frankly 
erotic  magazines — Tough  Talesy  Saucy  Stories,  Naughty 
Novelettes,  to  paraphrase  their  titles — most  of  the 
readers  of  which  were  young  girls.  I  saw  it  myself 
in  my  business  trips  and  heard  about  it  from  my  corre- 
spondents and  employees.  This  was  the  reaction  of 

278 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

the  laboring  -class  to  the  same  conditions  that  plunged 
the  rich  into  a  riot  of  extravagance  and  dissipation. 

Wealth  had  had  the  same  effect  upon  imperial 
Rome.  As  Winwood  Reade  says,  referring  to  the  de- 
cline of  Egypt,  in  "The  Martyrdom  of  Man":  "The 
vast  wealth  and  soft  luxury  of  the  new  empire  under- 
mined its  strength.  ...  To  the  same  cause  may  be 
traced  the  rum  and  the  fall,  not  only  of  Egypt,  but  of 
all  the  powers  of  the  ancient  world:  of  Nineveh,  and 
Babylon,  and  Persia;  of  the  Macedonian  Kingdom  and 
the  Western  Empire.  As  soon  as  those  nations  be- 
came rich  they  began  to  decay." 

Material  prosperity,  like  that  of  England  and 
America  before  the  war,  tends  to  render  nations  en- 
ervated and  corrupt,  depriving  them  of  vigor,  and 
making  them  susceptible  to  anarchy  or  other  forms 
of  social  disease.  Certainly  civilization  hi  1914  had 
reached  a  state  of  extravagance  and  luxury  which 
possibly  only  war  or  social  revolution  could  have 
cured.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  that  when  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  war  shall  be  over,  and  men  can  look  back 
calmly  at  the  events  and  conditions  that  preceded 
it,  it  will  be  seen  that  not  its  least  dramatic  aspect 
was  the  sudden  ending  of  the  madness  which  had 
taken  possession  of  society  the  world  over. 

Shane  Leslie,  treating  of  social  conditions  in  Eng- 
land just  before  the  war,  says:  "The  English  fleet 
has  been  aptly  compared  to  the  Roman  legions  cut 

279 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

off  from  a  decadent  capital,  to  guard  the  world  from 
the  barbarians.  Whether  English  society  was  suffer- 
ing from  decay  or  development,  symptoms  made  their 
appearance  not  far  different  from  those  which  his- 
torians tell  of  the  last  phase  of  Roman  history.  The 
Colosseum  once  contained  the  same  crowds  of  pallid 
unfit  that  watched  the  muddy  arenas  of  English  foot- 
ball. A  similar  indolent  and  half-educated  bourgeoisie 
loafed  hi  the  imperial  baths  as  attended  English  cricket. 
In  the  higher  stage  of  society  there  was  the  same  re- 
vulsion from  the  old-fashioned  virtues  and  an  ex- 
pressed contempt  for  whatever  belonged  to  the  Au- 
gustan, or  in  the  latter  case  Victorian,  age  in  writing 
or  morals.  London  churches  were  deserted  for  week- 
end parties  exactly  as  the  temples  were  scorned  by 
the  jaded  pleasure-seekers  of  Rome.  Nobody  in  Eng- 
land took  the  sovereign's  defensorship  of  the  faith 
more  seriously  than  the  Romans  took  the  deification 
of  their  Emperors.  The  state  religion  in  London  had 
a  less  hold  on  many  than  the  charlatan,  the  theosophist, 
and  the  necromancer,  just  as  Capitoline  Jove  and  the 
matronly  Juno  were  deserted  for  the  more  exciting 
deities  of  the  East.  Socially,  women  in  London  ex- 
changed family  lockets  for  immodest  charms.  .  .  . 
The  signs  were  present,  even  if  the  decay  was  not  as 
deep  as  German  sociologists  wished  to  believe.  War 
instantly  restored  the  old  stoical  and  patriotic  vir- 
tues/' 

280 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

So  also  in  America  the  year  1914  saw  the  maximum 
of  demoralization  in  social  life.  Periodical  literature, 
often  pandering  to  vice  under  the  guise  of  teaching 
morality,  reflected  the  eroticism  that  in  most  Amer- 
ican cities  and  in  many  country  towns  accompanied 
the  effort  to  enjoy  the  sensations  of  sin  while  ostensibly 
lingering  inside  the  pink  palings  of  virtue.  All  this 
near-vice  and  flirtation  with  immorality  was  but  the 
echo  of  what  was  going  on  in  Europe,  where  the  tide 
of  degeneracy  had  reached  its  flood.  In  London,  in 
Paris,  in  St.  Petersburg,  and— I  speak  without  venom — 
especially  in  Berlin,  the  wearied  seekers  after  pleasure, 
fatigued  with  the  pursuit  of  Aphrodite,  were  resorting 
to  exotic  pleasures  that  rivalled  those  of  the  pagan 
civilizations.  Not  only  had  the  demi-mondaine  been 
made  the  pattern  of  fashion,  not  only  did  social  inter- 
course savor  largely  of  sexual  intrigue,  but  the  ennui 
of  society  showed  itself  hi  a  fever  of  gambling  at  cards 
that  rivalled  the  days  of  Charles  James  Fox,  and  worst 
of  all  the  spread  of  the  drug  habit  bid  fair  to  under- 
mine what  moral  stamina  still  remained. 

All  the  world  was  dancing — if  dancing  it  could  be 
called — to  the  barbaric  clash  of  cymbals  and  the  crash 
of  crockery,  and  the  convolutions  of  the  "tango  lizard" 
to  whom  the  young  and  temporarily  innocent  were 
shamelessly  abandoned,  would  have  brought  a  blush 
of  shame  to  the  bronzed  cheek  of  any  self-respecting 
nautch-girl  or  voodoo  dancer.  The  search  for  some- 

281 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

thing  new  resulted  in  the  taking  up  of  all  kinds  of 
strange  and  occult  "religions/*  In  New  York  "The 
Great  Oom  "  and  others  of  like  ilk  were  pursued  by 
foolish  women  much  as  the  children  of  Hamlen  town 
followed  after  the  Pied  Piper,  some  to  their  lasting 
degradation;  and,  as  Leslie  says,  the  smart  ladies  of 
London  crowded  the  parlors  of  the  clairvoyants  and 
fortune-tellers,  and  covered  themselves  with  charms 
and  amulets. 

The  New  York  hotels  were  jammed  from  four  o'clock 
on  with  turkey  and  fox  trotters,  where  the  tired  busi- 
ness man  could  secure  partners  without  formality, 
and  presumably  respectable  wives  and  mothers  con- 
tested the  supremacy  of  the  floor  with  painted  ladies 
from  the  shabby  sections  adjacent  to  Times  Square. 
Introductions  were  superfluous.  The  "the  dansant" 
of  the  Broadway  hotel  was  in  fact  as  great  a  menace 
to  domestic  virtue  as  the  "Haymarket"  and  "Turkish 
Village"  of  other  days,  or  the  "Ladies'  Parlor"  of  the 
East  Side  saloon.  At  the  swagger  restaurants  and 
private  balls  the  seminudity  of  the  dancers  vied  with 
the  suggestiveness  of  the  music,  and  the  pantomime 
of  the  dance  was  accentuated  by  the  breaking  of  glass 
and  the  pounding  of  tom-toms,  assisted  by  whistles, 
catcalls,  and  yells  from  the  orchestra.  Any  Congo 
chieftain  who  inadvertently  wandered  in  would  have 
felt  entirely  at  home.  And  at  the  very  climax  of  this 
crescendo  of  degeneracy  came  the  distant  rumble  of 

282 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

war.  The  fox-trotters  paused  in  their  gyrations,  the 
card-players  glanced  up  apprehensively  from  the  green 
tables,  the  fille  de  joie  set  down  with  a  pale  face  the 
glass  she  had  half  raised  to  her  red  lips. 

I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  vice  has  been  ram- 
pant among  the  men  and  women  I  know  along  upper 
Fifth  Avenue.  It  hasn't.  For  the  most  part  they  are 
rich  and  dull — meticulously  respectable.  But  the 
license  of  Broadway  and  the  Tenderloin  has  been  re- 
flected in  the  entertainment  provided  for  the  young 
and  in  the  extravagance  of  their  elders.  We  have 
gorged  ourselves  with  luxury,  for  we  have  lacked  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  aspirations.  It  is  trite  but 
nevertheless  true  that  materialism  had  eaten  into 
our  natures,  attacking  and  destroying  the  sturdier 
qualities  inherited  from  our  fathers.  Often,  the  more 
respectable  people  were  the  most  lavish  and  self-in- 
dulgent, for  the  reason  that  they  had  no  real  vices 
upon  which  to  spend  their  money.  The  eating  of 
elaborate  dinners,  like  the  smoking  of  cigars  in  the 
case  of  many  of  us  men,  became  the  chief  end  of 
existence.  From  the  first  of  January  to  the  end  of 
March,  without  intermission,  adult  men  and  women 
went  night  after  night,  from  one  house  to  another, 
to  a  succession  of  costly  entertainments  where  they 
sat,  ate,  and  talked  about  little  but  their  amusements 
from  eight  o'clock  until  eleven  or  twelve.  To  prepare 
themselves  for  the  physical  strain  of  these  gastronom- 

283 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

ical  events  the  women,  at  any  rate,  lay  in  bed  until 
ten  or  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  occupied 
themselves  with  trivialities,  light  literature,  motor- 
ing, and  card-playing  throughout  the  day.  Had  any 
one  suggested  that  they  were  leading  lives  closely  akin 
to  barbarism  they  would  have  been  politely  amused. 

The  most  obvious  reform  that  the  war  has  occasioned 
— and  it  was  to  be  expected  that  where  the  conditions 
were  the  worst  there  the  cure  would  be  most  pro- 
nounced— is  the  annihilation  of  class  distinction  and 
the  reverence  for  wealth.  It  has  come  so  swiftly  and 
so  easily,  the  transition  is  so  complete  and  effectual, 
that  it  seems  as  if  all  the  snobbery  that  went  before 
must  have  been  a  sort  of  game  which  we  played  for 
the  amusement  of  a  few  old  ladies  with  our  tongues  in 
our  cheeks.  Wealth  has  ceased — except  when  en- 
gaging seats  at  after-theatre  cabarets — to  have  any 
social  significance.  In  a  word,  the  great  God  Mam- 
mon has  fallen  flat,  face  downward  in  the  dead  ashes 
of  his  own  altar. 

The  old-fashioned  fiction  of  a  select  circle — Society 
with  a  capital  "S" — the  old  Four  Hundred — already 
shattered  before  the  war,  has  now  been  blown  to  atoms 
— to  the  universal  satisfaction.  The  conventional 
dinner  with  its  overloaded  table  and  many  guests 
is  no  longer  "smart"  or  even  correct.  Heretofore  a 
few  bedizened  dowagers  have  been  struggling  hero- 
ically against  the  rising  tide  of  common  sense  to  keep 

284 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

aloft  the  standard  of  exclusiveness.  Reinforced  by 
the  moral  effect  of  some  scattering  alliances  with  the 
genuine  European  nobility,  they  have  in  the  past  been 
able  to  maintain  a  fictitious  social  hierarchy.  There 
was  a  time  when  some  people  felt  aggrieved  if  they 
were  not  invited  to  Mrs.  Astor's  annual  ball.  To-day 
nobody  is  aggrieved  at  not  being  invited  to  anything, 
partly,  to  be  sure,  because  they  know  that  there  isn't 
anything  to  be  invited  to.  They  have  also  suddenly 
realized  that  there  really  isn't  anybody  in  New  York 
or  elsewhere  who  is  entitled  or  qualified  to  pass  on  the 
social  status  of  anybody  else  hi  America,  where  of  all 
places  in  the  world  only  what  a  man  is,  not  what  he 
has,  should  count. 

But  the  old  regime  has  died  hard.  A  scant  half- 
dozen  bearded  female  grenadiers  still  refuse  to  sur- 
render, even  to  the  covert  laughter  of  then*  grand- 
children. They  are  the  last  surviving  members  of 
Society.  But  they  will  not  survive  the  war.  After 
it  is  over,  there  will  never  be  any  Society  of  that 
sort  again.  What  social  life  the  debutante  of  1918 
gets  will  be  in  the  companionship  of  service.  The 
dancing-men  will  dance  no  more.  The  "pet  cats" 
and  "parlor  snakes"  will  all  have  slunk  and  wriggled 
out  of  sight.  The  aristocratic  families  will  be  those 
whose  men  and  women  have  done  most  for  their  coun- 
try, not  those  whose  ancestors  "rose  from  rags  to 
riches/'  There  will  be  a  new  order  of  nobility,  and 

285 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

our  boys  instead  of  becoming  coal  "barons,"  steel 
"kings,"  or  "knights  of  industry,"  will  be  knighted 
upon  the  battle-field  with  the  accolade  of  valor  and 
self-sacrifice. 

The  day  of  the  gold-plate-rock-crystal-duck-and- 
champagne  dinner  is  over  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
We  are  entering  upon  an  era  of  social  sanity,  where 
display  and  extravagance  will  be  viewed  with  disap- 
proval. 

The  thought  of  the  lavishness  of  only  a  year  or  two 
ago  now  fills  one  with  disgust,  and  even  to  write  of 
terrapin  and  Chambertin  when  the  dead  bodies  of  one's 
fellow  beings  are  rotting  in  the  mud  in  front  of  Ger- 
man trenches  in  Flanders  seems  trivial  and  heartless. 
But  it  has  taken  the  horror  of  this  frightful  carnage 
to  bring  people  to  their  senses.  Perhaps  nothing  less 
would  have  jarred  the  self-complacent  and  comfort- 
able rich  into  seeing  things  in  their  true  light.  If  it 
has  done  naught  else  it  has  brought  about  a  world- 
wide readjustment  of  values.  Socialism  might  have 
eventually  accomplished  the  same  result,  but  it  would 
have  achieved  it  only  after  a  bitter  struggle  between 
classes.  We  might  have  had  another  French  Revolu- 
tion. Now  people  are  doing  voluntarily  what  only 
the  equivalent  of  the  guillotine  or  the  terror  of  the 
mob  might  have  forced  upon  them.  Strange  that  only 
the  red-foamed  mares  of  war,  blindness,  pestilence, 
and  death,  could  induce  people  to  live  as  their  own 

286 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

mental  and  physical  well-being  require  that  they 
should.  For  it  has  not  been  common  sense  or  eco- 
nomics that  has  led  people  to  shorten  then*  dinners — 
it  has  been  the  horror  of  the  trenches,  the  suffering 
of  the  wounded  in  the  hospitals,  and  the  cries  of  the 
famished  children  of  Belgium.  Whatever  the  reason, 
let  us  hope  that  after  the  war  there  will  be  simply 
for  their  own  sakes  no  reversion  on  the  part  of  the 
wealthy  to  their  former  wastefulness.  Let  us  hope 
that  what  the  horror  of  the  conflict  has  led  them  to 
abandon  they  may  discard  permanently  because  of 
the  realization  that  it  is  a  better  way  to  live. 

A  striking  change  has  taken  place  in  the  entire  out- 
look of  those  who  have  been  heretofore  referred  to  as 
society  women.  Hundreds  of  the  ones  who  up  to  our 
entry  into  the  war  played  bridge  morning,  afternoon, 
and  night,  seemingly  with  an  utter  disregard  for  the 
responsibilities  of  life,  or  spent  their  time  lunching, 
going  to  the  theatre  and  opera,  or  at  their  milliners 
and  jewellers,  have  stopped  short  in  their  mad  race 
for  gayety  and  excitement,  and  to-day  roll  bandages 
at  the  same  tables  where  yesterday  they  played  double 
dummy.  The  money  they  threw  away  gambling  at 
cards  they  now  give  to  the  Red  Cross.  At  the  summer 
resort  of  Bar  Harbor  alone  four  hundred  thousand  dress- 
ings were  turned  out  in  the  three  months  of  July,  Au- 
gust, and  September,  1917.  At  the  very  moment  when 
the  city-bred  American  women  seemed  at  the  lowest 

287 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

ebb  of  extravagance,  idleness,  and  self-indulgence, 
when  metropolitan  life  seemed  rotten  with  the  gangrene 
of  materialism  and  luxury,  the  shudder  of  the  guns 
along  the  western  front  ran  down  their  spines  and 
roused  them  to  the  consciousness  that  it  was  up  to 
them  to  do  something.  And  they  have  done  it — done 
it  as  faithfully  and  perseveringly  as  their  less  wealthy 
sisters.  Where  they  seemed  quite  mad  before  they 
have  now  become  quite  sane,  and  they  have  taken 
off  their  gloves  and  set  to  work  with  a  will.  Instead 
of  the  foolish  chatter  one  has  been  compelled  to  listen 
to  in  the  past,  one  begins  to  hear  something  resembling 
at  least  intelligent  conversation.  They  are  acutely 
interested  in  what  is  going  on  in  Rome,  London,  Paris, 
and  Salonika.  Women  who  used  to  vie  with  one  an- 
other in  the  display  of  dress  and  jewels,  have  put  their 
pearls  in  the  safe.  But,  most  remarkable  of  all,  where 
they  have  idled  before  they  now  with  one  accord  pass 
busy  days  working  with  their  hands. 

I  believe  that  the  tremendous  change  in  morale  ob- 
servable at  the  present  time  in  the  fashionable  woman 
followed  her  reassumption  of  physical  effort.  Life  had 
become  so  easy  for  her  that  just  as  she  no  longer  had 
to  use  her  body  she  no  longer  used  her  mind.  She 
had  almost  lost  the  creative  instinct.  Now  that  she 
has  begun  to  use  her  hands  she  has  started  to  use  her 
mind  again.  She  has  rediscovered  the  joy  of  doing, 
the  thrill  of  physical  achievement.  She  no  longer  feels 

288 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

obliged  to  ring  for  her  maid  to  perform  the  trifling 
service  which  she  can  just  as  well  do  for  herself. 
And  apart  from  the  mere  pleasure  to  be  obtained  from 
physical  occupation  she  has  learned  anew — if,  indeed, 
she  had  ever  learned  it  before — the  joy  of  service  and 
of  sharing  with  others. 

"It  is  a  very  wholesome  and  regenerating  change/' 
says  President  Wilson,  "which  a  man  undergoes  when 
he  'comes  to  himself.'  It  is  not  only  after  periods  of 
recklessness  or  infatuation,  when  he  has  played  the 
spendthrift  or  the  fool,  that  man  comes  to  himself. 
He  comes  to  himself  after  experiences  of  which  he 
alone  may  be  aware;  when  he  has  left  off  being  wholly 
preoccupied  with  his  own  powers  and  interests,  and 
with  every  petty  plan  that  centres  in  himself;  when 
he  has  cleared  his  eyes  to  see  the  world  as  it  is,  and 
his  own  true  place  and  function  in  it." 

It  has  seemed  to  me,  since  my  return  to  America 
after  my  long  absence  of  nearly  a  year,  that  the  Presi- 
dent's words  are  as  apt  when  applied  to  a  nation  as 
to  a  man,  and  that  at  a  time  when  his  concern  was 
with  individuals  rather  than  with  peoples  he  may 
have  unconsciously  been  prophesying  the  change  that 
was  later  to  take  place  in  the  nation  of  which  he  was 
to  become  the  head. 

That  there  has  been  such  a  change — a  startling  and 
radical  one — in  the  American  people  is  indubitable, 
and  it  is  no  less  certain  that  the  war  has  brought  this 

289 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

change  about.  What  one  bond-broker  has  observed 
of  this  alteration  in  the  life  about  him,  for  what  it 
may  be  worth  of  encouragement  or  of  warning  to  his 
fellow  Americans,  it  has  been  my  purpose — the  pur- 
pose of  John  Stanton  of Pine  Street,  New  York 

City — to  record.  What  is  there  in  fact  on  the  credit 
side  of  our  spiritual  balance-sheet?  In  the  old  phrase, 
let  us  take  a  brief  account  of  stock. 

It  sounds  banal,  now,  to  talk  about  the  national 
conscience.  Yet  at  the  time  of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  I  frankly  believe  that  we  had  ceased  to  have 
any.  Our  grandiose  conception  of  America  was  of  a 
country  too  large  in  territory  and  enterprise  to  have 
any  unity  hi  its  opinions  or  policies.  That  was  how 
the  Kaiser  thought  of  us — unless,  indeed,  he  regarded 
our  public  opinion  as  potentially  German,  which — 
shades  of  Dr.  Dernberg ! — is  possible. 

We  were  rather  complacently  accustomed  to  point 
out  that,  of  course,  there  were  so  many  different  types 
of  nationalities  constituting  the  American  people  that 
we  had  no  strictly  national  aims  or  ambitions  except 
to  be  left  alone — no  principles  except  the  particular 
form  of  "liberty"  which  we  enjoyed — no  doctrines 
to  uphold  except  the  moribund  doctrine  of  Monroe. 
Indeed,  some  people  went  so  far,  only  four  or  five  years 
ago,  as  to  prophesy  more  or  less  publicly  that  a  nation 
which  had  so  many  local  interests  and  prejudices  could 
not  permanently  remain  intact;  that  the  West  feared 

290 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

and  distrusted  Wall  Street,  and  that  the  Mississippi 
formed  a  natural  line  of  division  between  what  might 
easily  become  two  separate  nations — the  Western 
States  of  North  America  and  the  Eastern.  Nobody 
took  this  sort  of  talk  seriously,  but  it  reflected  some- 
thing behind  it.  The  West  did  distrust  Wall  Street. 
Nobody  blames  it  either.  The  trouble  was  that  the 
West  thought  Wall  Street  filled  a  good  deal  bigger 
part  of  the  cosmos  than  it  does.  But  it  was  enough 
if  Wall  Street  wanted  something  for  a  large  part  of 
the  country  to  be  opposed  to  it. 

Public  opinion  was  local  and  divided.  As  a  people 
we  had  lost  the  capacity  for  moral  indignation.  This 
was  equally  true  of  most  of  our  larger  cities,  with  the 
notable  exceptions  of  Boston  and  Baltimore.  That 
was  the  situation  that  confronted  President  Wilson. 
But  now  apathy  has  given  place  to  patriotism — the 
West  and  the  East  are  genuinely  one.  The  son  of  the 
New  York  banker  is  bunking  with  the  apple-grower's 
boy  from  Oregon.  You  do  not  hear  people  talking 
about  the  "West"  and  the  "East"  any  longer— it  is 
all  "we"  and  "us."  We  have  a  national  conscious- 
ness if  not  a  national  conscience. 

That  is  looking  at  it  from  the  "longitudinal"  point* 
of  view.  But  there  is  another  that  is  really  more  in- 
teresting, the  "vertical,"  so  to  speak.  What  of  the 
upper  and  the  lower  classes?  Imagine  the  novelist's 
confusion  after  the  war  when  he  tries  to  write  his 

291 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

sociological  romance!  The  aristocracy  of  wealth  and 
" position"  has  been  utterly  swept  away  and  an  aris- 
tocracy of  ability  and  service  substituted  in  its  place. 
For  illustration:  a  young  man  of  good  parts  entered 
a  certain  Eastern  university  and  although  he  was  an 
excellent  fellow  a  certain  group  of  his  classmates  took 
occasion  to  make  him  feel  that  his  social  qualifications 
were  not  such  as  to  warrant  his  inclusion  into  their 
charmed  circle.  The  war  broke  out  and  all  enlisted 
in  the  same  service.  In  the  training-camp  these  men 
still  pursued  their  wretched  policy  of  exclusiveness. 
At  the  end  of  a  month  the  object  of  their  contempt 
had  shown  such  conspicuous  qualifications  for  leader- 
ship that  he  had  been  put  in  command  of  the  section 
to  which  they  were  assigned,  and  was  giving  them 
orders.  Two  weeks  later  he  was  given  a  commission 
as  a  captain  and  sent  to  France.  Another  month  and 
he  had  been  cited  hi  the  orders  for  the  day  for  dis- 
tinguished bravery  and  coolness — while  the  youths 
who  had  thought  themselves  too  good  for  him  were 
still  marching  in  columns  of  fours.  This  is  not  fiction, 
but  fact. 

To-day  the  millionaire  who  isn't  giving  himself  and, 
at  least,  a  part  of  his  wealth  to  the  service  of  the  na- 
tion is  not  cordially  received.  He  can  no  longer  buy 
immunity  and  retain  his  position  in  the  community. 
His  millions  do  not  count  in  the  scales  of  sacrifice 
against  the  life  of  the  negro  bell-hop  from  the  Planter's 

292 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

Hotel.  In  the  final  test  it  may  be  that  no  one  of  us 
can  keep  both  his  life  and  his  self-respect.  If  the  su- 
preme test  of  being  a  gentleman  is  his  willingness  to 
lay  down  his  life  for  a  cause,  hereafter  whatever  form 
socialism  may  take  there  will  always  be  at  least  a  mil- 
lion gentlemen  in  the  United  States. 

The  millionaires  are  seizing  the  opportunity  to  try 
to  justify  their  existence  in  this  war.  Most  of  them 
have  made  good.  They  read  also  the  signs  of  the  times. 
Many  are  becoming  frankly  socialistic,  loud  subscribers 
to  the  doctrine  that  nobody  should  get  more  than  a 
reasonable  profit  out  of  any  enterprise.  The  day  of 
the  multimillion  fortune  is  over.  Its  possessor  is 
to-day  busily  engaged  in  making  excuses  for  having  it. 
In  many  cases  if  he  is  too  old  to  volunteer  he  has  gone 
into  the  government  service. 

It  is  a  somewhat  quaint  experience  to  sit  in  a  club 
window  with  a  plutocrat  who  has  spent  most  of  his 
life  in  cursing  the  government  and  complaining  of 
congressional  interference  with  his  business  affairs, 
and  listen  to  him  talk  about  what  "we,"  i.  e.,  the 
government  of  which  he  now  forms  a  part,  are  going 
to  do.  It  is  equally  refreshing  to  hear  a  railroad  presi- 
dent bewailing  the  hesitation  of  the  government  in 
taking  over  control  of  the  railroads.  We  shall  have 
no  more  huge  fortunes,  no  more  moneyed  aristocrats 
arising  out  of  the  artificial  soil  of  special  privilege. 
Hereafter  the  "upper"  class  will  be  composed  ex- 

293 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

clusively  of  those  who  have  earned  the  right  to  be 
there. 

The  war  has  called  a  variety  of  things  to  our  at- 
tention. It  has  taught  us  the  relative  "value-in-use" 
of  the  different  professions.  The  "saw-bones"  has 
acquired  a  new  dignity.  We  perceive  that  the  lawyer 
and  the  politician,  like  the  broker,  is  often  a  parasite. 
We  begin  to  grasp  the  importance  of  the  actual  pro- 
ducer— the  fellow  who  breeds  the  cattle  and  hogs,  that 
plants  and  harvests  the  crops  and  digs  the  copper  and 
iron  out  of  the  earth.  The  laborer  looms  large  on  the 
horizon.  We  wonder  at  the  reason  for  such  a  myriad 
of  small  shopkeepers.  We  observe  with  satisfaction 
that  our  form  of  government  is  sufficiently  elastic 
to  enable  us  not  only  to  carry  on  a  great  war  without 
breaking  down  (legal  sharps  and  political  croakers 
to  the  contrary),  but  to  make  the  world  safe  for  democ- 
racy by  an  exhibition  of  autocracy  that  might  well 
have  astonished  Thomas  Jefferson.  Socialists,  repub- 
licans, liberals,  conservatives,  populists,  and  reac- 
tionaries— our  Bolsheviki  and  our  Minimalists — are 
all  gratified  equally.  We  have  discovered  that  in  some 
of  our  legislation  we  have  been  trying  to  bite  off  the 
national  nose  in  order  to  please  the  political  face.  We 
have  come  to  regard  as  easily  mutable  institutions 
that  two  years  ago  seemed  as  firm  as  the  Pyramids. 
Not  only  do  we  not  rebel  at  revolutionary  income 
taxes  but  we  seem  to  be  glad  of  the  chance  to  pay  them. 

294 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

The  wealthy  face  the  probability  of  a  change  in  their 
condition  with  equanimity.  It  is  almost  as  if  they 
feel  that  they  have  had  more  than  enough,  and  so 
long  as  everybody  is  treated  alike  they  won't  mind 
having  less.  In  fact,  the  suggestion  that  the  cottages 
of  Newport  summer  residents  should  be  commandeered 
for  shipyard  workers  was  sympathetically  received  by 
their  owners.  Everybody  seems  glad  to  give  away 
his  money  if  only  somebody  will  tell  him  exactly  how 
to  do  it. 

But,  of  course,  the  chief  effect  of  the  war  has  been 
as  a  moral  stimulant.  It  has  keyed  us  up  to  a  new 
interest  in  everything  from  life  to  death,  and  the  best 
way  of  living  and  dying.  We  had  all  settled  down  into 
the  comfortable  hypothesis  that  our  old  world  had 
at  last  been  shaken  pretty  definitely  into  shape.  We 
believed  that  international  and  commercial  relation- 
ships had  become  so  complex  that  war  was  an  impos- 
sibility— a  "great  illusion,"  indeed!  We  had  worked 
down  deeper  and  deeper  into  our  social  and  spiritual 
ruts.  We  were  exceedingly  comfortable  and  becoming 
more  so  all  the  time.  We  argued  from  fixed  premises, 
based  on  universal  experience  since  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian War.  The  most  revolutionary  things  that  we 
could  envisage  were  new  plays,  new  religions,  and  new 
art  movements — cubist  painting,  spiritualism,  and 
Bernard  Shaw.  Then  while  the  sky  was  still  blue  and 
the  sunlight  was  bright  in  our  eyes  the  ground  shook 

295 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

and  we  were  sent  sprawling  like  tenpins.  The  earth- 
quake toppled  over  our  ancient  attitudes  and  processes 
of  thought  and  set  our  spiritual  bones  to  rattling. 
We  were  like  a  lot  of  comatose  clocks  all  put  ticking 
again.  Some  ticked  faster  than  others,  to  be  sure,  but 
they  all  ticked — even  those  which  had  never  ticked 
before.  A  lot  of  people  discovered  for  the  first  time 
that  they  had  real  emotions — were  really  alive — people 
whose  mental  and  moral  works  had  become  so  rusty 
that  they  had  entirely  stopped  thinking  and  feeling 
years  ago.  The  old  set  phrases  about  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  which  they  had  been  taught 
in  childhood,  and  now  and  again  had  repeated  mechani- 
cally, suddenly  glowed  with  a  divine  fire.  Life  and 
liberty  became  precious  possessions — not  vague  ab- 
stractions. 

We  have  had  shock  after  shock.  The  earthquake 
has  aroused  our  interest  not  only  in  war  but  in  every- 
thing else — in  geography,  hygiene,  physics,  philosophy, 
religion,  sociology,  politics.  It  has  knocked  the  cob- 
webs out  of  our  drowsy  brains.  It  has  made  possible 
ideas  before  viewed  as  almost  Utopian  and  fantastic — 
woman  suffrage,  prohibition,  the  conquest  of  the  depths 
of  the  sea  and  the  highest  reaches  of  the  air,  and  govern- 
mental control  of  both.  It  has  made  Jules  Verne, 
Kipling,  and  H.  G.  Wells  seem  like  very  ordinary  folk. 
We  speak  quite  naturally  of  a  "Caproni  Limited/' 
Rome-Fayal-New  York,  in  thirty-six  hours  as  soon 

296 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

as  the  war  is  over.  It  has  made  us  realize  that  India 
and  China,  Siberia  and  East  Africa,  New  Zealand  and 
Morocco,  Armenia,  Arabia,  and  Egypt  exist  not  merely 
on  lantern-slides  or  as  colored  patches  on  the  plates 
of  atlases  but  are  concrete  and  easily  reached  places. 
It  has  given  us  new  thought  for  our  physical  well- 
being.  The  health  of  the  nation  has  improved.  It 
has  given  us  a  sense  of  the  adventure  of  life  and  the 
greater  adventure  of  death.  We  have  the  feeling  of 
exhilaration  that  comes  from  the  realization  that  we 
are  living  still  on  the  frontier  of  the  unknown.  It  has 
sobered  the  young  and  inoculated  the  old  with  youth. 
It  has  started  a  new  search  for  religion  and  evoked 
a  new  faith.  We  dimly  perceive  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  cosmos  and  the  trifling  value  of  hu- 
man life,  as  compared  with  the  way  it  should  be  lived. 
It  has  given  a  new  lease  of  life  to  the  man  who  was 
tired  of  it  because  he  seemed  to  be  simply  "marking 
time,"  to  the  ne'er-do-well  and  to  the  failure  who  have 
been  given  an  opportunity  to  retrieve  themselves. 
It  has  brought  out  the  inherited  good  qualities  in  the 
rich  man's  son  which  otherwise  would  have  lain  dormant 
through  indolence  or  complacency.  It  has  given  the 
successful  business  or  professional  man  his  opportunity 
to  become  a  national  figure  instead  of  merely  to  go  on 
adding  to  his  investments  and  has  taught  him  that 
loving  favor  is  better  than  silver  and  gold;  that  true 
success  lies  not  in  what  we  have  but  in  what  we  are. 

297 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

For  many  it  has  done  vastly  more.  Some  indeed 
have  been  spiritually  reborn.  And  some  have  died 
heroically  with  the  allied  armies  in  the  bloody  slough 
of  France  and  Belgium,  or  in  the  smoke-filled  air  above 
it.  Of  these  chivalric  men  and  of  those  belonging  to 
them  I  do  not  speak.  For  while  the  nation  has  "come 
to  itself,"  while  its  regeneration  has  been  begun,  that 
regeneration  is  far  from  being  accomplished. 

In  gross  the  national  response  to  the  call  to  arms 
has  been  magnificent,  even  astonishing.  We  have 
already  contributed  six  billions  of  dollars,  enlisted 
seven  hundred  thousand  volunteer  soldiers  in  the 
Regular  Army  and  the  National  Guard,  constructed 
thirty-two  marvellous  cities  for  our  armies  in  train- 
ing, outlined  and  begun  the  building  of  ships  aggregat- 
ing over  ten  million  dead  tonnage,  drafted  seven  hun- 
dred thousand  men  into  service,  sent  an  effective  fleet 
of  torpedo-boat  destroyers  to  England,  raised  a  hun- 
dred million  dollars  for  the  Red  Cross  and  thirty  million 
for  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  put  into  operation  a  complicated 
system  of  food  administration  and  conservation,  and 
started  a  military  and  naval  programme  that  in  two 
years  may  rival  what  it  has  taken  Germany  fifty  years 
to  perfect.  That  is  tremendous ! 

The  world  has  never  seen  anything  more  heroic 
than  the  splendid  fashion  in  which  mothers  and  wives 
all  over  the  land,  with  smiles  on  their  faces  and  songs 
on  their  lips,  are  sending  their  boys  and  their  young 

298 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

husbands  to  the  front.  We  sing  no  songs  of  hate  on 
this  side  of  the  water — as  yet.  Let  us  hope  that  we 
never  shall  and  that  we  can  fight  out  this  war  in  the 
same  spirit  that  we  went  into  it — to  maintain  the 
ideals  of  humanity,  and  keep  the  world  a  decent  and 
pleasant  place  to  live  in. 

We  can  afford  to  be  proud  of  our  volunteers,  of  our 
American  women,  of  our  fifty  thousand  buyers  of 
Liberty  Bonds,  of  the  clerks,  artisans,  servants,  and 
trained  nurses  who  have  contributed  toward  the  Red 
Cross,  of  our  rich  men  and  of  our  poor  men  who  are 
working  together  with  undivided  purpose,  of  all  we 
have  already  accomplished  and  all  we  are  going  to 
do.  Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  so  far  it  has  been 
done  almost  without  losing  a  Me,  going  without  a 
meal,  or  giving  up  anything  that  was  really  necessary 
to  our  comfort. 

We  have  a  right  to  be  confident  of  the  sincerity  of 
our  patriotism,  our  generosity,  and  our  courage.  But 
so  far  what  we  have  accomplished  has  been  done  to 
the  waving  of  flags  and  to  bands  playing  "Over  There 
— over  there — over  there ! " 

The  enthusiasm  with  which  we  have  thrown  our- 
selves into  the  struggle  must  not  be  allowed  to  beget 
an  undue  assurance.  We  as  a  people  are  prone  to 
think  that  we  can  do  anything.  We  have  an  unbounded 
confidence  in  the  inexhaustible  nature  of  the  material 
resources  of  our  country  and  its  wealth,  in  the  "smart- 

299 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

ness"  of  our  business  men,  the  "cleverness"  of  our 
inventors,  and  in  the  bravery  of  our  youth.  We  boast 
that  once  let  our  boys  get  at  them  and  it  will  be  all 
over  with  the  boches.  Some  of  our  soldiers  have  been 
ill-advised  enough  to  say  to  the  French  in  so  many 
words  that  they  have  come  over  to  win  the  war  for 
them.  Our  enthusiasm  is  quite  American.  There  is 
a  good  deal  in  Hindenburg's  remark  that  America  is 
the  land  that  produced  Barnum.  There  is  something 
of  the  "whoop-la!"  about  it.  We  are  entirely  too 
confident.  We  have  little  realization  of  Germany's 
tremendous  power  and  malignity.  We  may  need  to 
have  the  national  bumptiousness  spanked  out  of  us. 

Our  enthusiasm  is  commendable — so  long  as  we 
are  not  deceived  by  our  own  uproar.  As  our  grand- 
mothers used  to  warn  us,  "what's  violent  isn't  lasting." 
This  has  got  to  last.  We  have  been  enthusiastic  be- 
fore. We  like  it.  We  enjoy  the  sensation.  We  were 
enthusiastic — very — over  Admiral  Dewey,  and  we  have 
enthused  over  others  also  who  in  the  end  likewise 
wondered  why.  Enthusiasm  is  our  specialty,  like  ad- 
vertising. It  is  advertising.  The  "slicker"  uniform 
is  unpleasantly  ubiquitous.  Some  of  our  wives  and 
daughters  are  less  genuinely  self-sacrificing  than  they 
are  enamoured  of  the  mummery  of  "Heroland,"  of 
sitting  in  costume  and  becoming  veils  in  Red  Cross 
booths,  or  rushing  around  in  flag-bedecked  motors 
on  Liberty  Loan  "drives" — the  driving  being  often 

300 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

only  motor  driving — of  all  the  little  conspicuosities 
that  were  never  permitted  them  before.  Particularly 
do  many  of  them  enjoy  being  allowed  to  address  the 
other  sex  on  equal  terms  without  imputation  of  bold- 
ness. For  some  of  the  older  ones,  with  whom  possible 
romance  is  not  involved,  there  is  the  grateful  sense  of 
being  one  in  a  great  movement,  of  being  busy — even 
if  only  moderately  where  before  they  were  entirely 
idle,  of  being  somewhat  unselfish  and  of  doing  a  little 
something  for  others.  It  is  surprising  how  much  satis- 
faction of  this  sort  can  be  extracted  from  knitting  one 
pair  of  socks  or  going  without  filet  mignon  on  odd 
Thursdays. 

This  dilettante  patriotism  is  a  bad  thing  for  the 
reason  that  it  comes  out  like  a  rash  and  then  fre- 
quently goes  away.  The  girl  who  ought  to  be  boning 
from  five  to  eight  hours  a  day  at  shorthand  in  a  busi- 
ness school  for  ten  months,  gets  more  praise  and  more 
attention  by  looking  attractive  and  pretty  for  a  single 
evening  at  a  Red  Cross  fair.  The  bazaar  business 
— the  parade  of  service — the  "halo-grabber" — must 
go.  In  their  place  has  got  to  come  the  realization  that 
the  war  cannot  and  will  not  be  won  to  the  braying  of 
brass  bands  but  by  going  without  bread — not  by  don- 
ning becoming  clothes  but  by  saving  coal  and  studying 
household  economics — not  by  doing  something  we 
rather  enjoy  but  by  giving  up  something  that  hurts, 
such  as  our  automobiles.  I  say  it  advisedly;  there 

301 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

are  women  in  every  large  city  of  the  United  States 
who  could  more  easily  bid  good-by  to  their  husbands 
or  their  sons,  and  see  them  march  away  in  uniform 
to  the  sound  of  the  bugle  and  the  cheers  of  the  crowd, 
than  they  could  give  up  the  luxuries  incident  to  their 
accustomed  way  of  living;  they  could  better  bear  a 
comfortable  grief  than  an  uncomfortable  household, 
although  the  family  circle  remained  intact.  But  if 
the  war  is  to  be  won,  the  hearth  and  the  larder  may 
both  be  nearly  empty. 

We  must  not  forget  that  there  are  thousands  of 
Americans,  unworthy,  to  be  sure,  of  the  name,  who 
having  profited  by  the  war  would  not  be  averse  secretly 
to  seeing  it  continue.  There  are  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands whose  lives  the  war  has  not  touched  at  all.  The 
industrial  world  is  humming  and  a  golden  harvest  is 
being  reaped  by  workers  and  owners,  in  spite  of  war- 
taxes  and  the  Priority  Board.  The  laborer  has  never 
known  greater  prosperity.  He  is  buying  pianos,  au- 
tomobiles, hall-clocks,  and  talking-machines.  He  is 
renting  the  house  his  superintendent  used  to  occupy. 
In  the  cities  many  of  the  big  hotels  have  recovered 
from  their  first  spasm  of  profit-patriotism,  and  crowd 
their  menus  with  the  same  multitude  of  elaborate 
dishes  at  advanced  prices.  The  waiter  serves  the  of- 
ficer in  uniform  with  whiskey  charged  for  as  "sarsapa- 
rilla."  I  know  of  a  New  York  man  who  within  a  week 
has  bought  for  his  wife  a  necklace  of  matched  pearls 

302 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

at  the  price  of  five  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Private 
owners  are  still  running  acres  of  greenhouses  while  the 
country  shivers  and  our  transports  are  harbor-bound 
for  coal.  The  fur  trade  has  been  booming.  Detec- 
tives hunt  for  storehouses  in  which  are  "cached"  hoards 
of  fuel,  sugar,  flour,  while  war  millionaires  dine  their 
friends  in  unabated  lavishness. 

Optimism  is  prone  to  confuse  what  the  war  has  al- 
ready done  with  what,  if  it  continues,  it  may  be  des- 
tined to  do.  To  claim  that  America's  regeneration 
has  been  accomplished  is  to  confuse  individuals  with 
the  nation  at  large.  That  is  my  only  criticism  of  Mr. 
John  Jay  Chapman's  inspiring  article  "The  Bright 
Side  of  the  War"  in  the  January  (1917)  Atlantic, 
where  he  says: 

"It  is  the  great  pain  which  we  have  passed  through, 
and  are  still  in  the  midst  of,  which  has  opened  our 
eyes  and  sharpened  our  ears  till  we  understand  many 
things  which  were  formerly  thought  to  be  paradox. 
Nothing  else  except  pain  ever  revealed  these  things 
to  mankind.  The  world's  religious  literature  has  been 
the  fruit  and  outcome  of  suffering.  Therefore,  it  is 
that  the  meaning  of  psalm,  poem,  and  tragedy  blossoms 
in  the  heart  of  persons  who  are  passing  through  any 
great  anguish.  .  .  .  To-day  .  .  .  is  an  era  of  prophecy 
and  the  prophet,  and  things  are  valued  in  terms  of 
the  spirit;  Life  and  Death  are  viewed  as  part  of  a 
single  scheme.  The  inordinate  value  set  on  life  during 

303 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

periods  of  prosperity  vanished  when  the  hostilities  be- 
gan. The  deepest  moral  mystery  of  the  world,  the 
mystery  of  sacrifice,  was  recognized,  understood,  and 
acted  upon  by  every  one  as  a  matter  of  course;  and 
a  wholesome  glow  came  over  humanity  in  consequence. 
The  average  soul  was  turned  right  side  out  for  the 
first  tune  in  its  experience;  and  all  the  forms  of  'con- 
version' with  which  philosophy  has  wrestled  for  cen- 
turies were  found  beside  the  hearth  and  in  the  market- 
place." 

That  is  finely  put.  It  is  doubtless  true  of  France 
and  of  England.  It  is  true  of  those  of  us  who  have  in 
fact  suffered;  but  it  is  not  true  of  our  nation  as  a  whole. 
The  United  States  has  not  suffered — yet.  Rather 
we  have  only  declared  in  clarion  tones  our  willingness 
to  suffer.  A  "wholesome  glow"  is  ours  in  consequence, 
but  as  a  nation  of  over  one  hundred  millions  we  are 
far  from  having  been  "turned  right  side  out."  That 
will  come — when  we  have  suffered  as  a  people  as  the 
other  peoples  have  suffered;  it  will  come  after  our 
purification  by  fire.  It  would  be  more  just  to  say  that 
as  a  nation  we  had  "come  to  ourselves" — to  that 
realization  of  our  true  estate  which  is  the  first  and 
essential  step  in  regeneration. 

My  halting  and  disconnected  record  of  what  the 
great  war  has  so  far  done  to  and  for  my  family,  my 
friends,  and  myself  is  finished.  The  first  phase  of  our 
experience — the  first  shock  of  the  earthquake — is  over. 

304 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

For  the  moment  America  pauses,  holding  her  breath, 
waiting  to  see  whether  peace  may  come,  or  whether 
the  armies  of  the  West  will  once  more  hurl  themselves 
against  one  another  with  unabated  determination  and 
ferocity.  So  I,  too,  pause  and  lay  down  my  pen,  for 
what  is  to  come  no  man  may  know. 

Already  the  war  has  taken  toll  of  millions  of  lives. 
Its  material  cost  is  beyond  the  hazard  of  the  economist. 
Hereafter  history  will  date  not  only  from  the  Chris- 
tian era  but  also  from  the  crucifixion  of  Belgium.  Yet 
often  I  feel  that  most  of  us  are  as  oblivious  of  what  is 
transpiring  as  the  workaday  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem 
were  two  thousand  years  ago  of  the  sacrifice  upon  the 
Mount  of  Olives. 

For  three  years  the  youth  of  the  world  has  poured 
out  its  blood,  dying  that  humanity — that  we — might 
be  saved.  Were  we  worth  saving?  Are  we  worth 
saving  ?  If  we  were  not,  if  we  are  not,  may  their  sacri- 
fice not  make  us  so — in  spite  of  ourselves?  For  I 
now  believe  that  the  regeneration  of  the  world  began 
with  the  defense  of  Belgium — and  that  in  this  coming 
regeneration  America  is  included.  On  the  borders  of 
that  little  country  Might  and  Right — Paganism  and 
Christianity — faced  one  another.  Humanity — liberty 
— democracy  hung  in  the  balance.  The  Hun  with 
his  sword  at  her  throat  offered  her  life  in  return  for 
honor.  Calmly — with  full  knowledge  of  the  conse- 
quences— the  choice  was  made  and  Belgium  was  cruci- 

305 


THE  EARTHQUAKE 

fied  upon  the  Calvary  of  Self-sacrifice.  She  could  save 
others,  herself  she  could  not  save. 

We  must  be  ready  to  do  no  less  than  little  Belgium. 
I  am  confident  that  we  are  prepared  to  do  it,  yet  I 
fear  that  we  do  not  realize  what  we  may  be  called  upon 
to  undergo.  We  do  not  as  a  people  understand  the 
infamy  of  Germany's  treacherous  tongue  and  brutal 
sword.  We  do  not  grasp  the  significance  of  President 
Wilson's  declaration  that  we  cannot  treat  with  the 
military  descendants  of  the  Teutonic  Knights.  For 
this  is  a  struggle  for  existence  between  the  gospel  of 
terror  and  that  of  humanity,  between  barbarism  and 
civilization,  between  tyranny  and  liberty,  between  a 
cruel  and  merciless  paganism  and  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  a  struggle  that  can  know  no  compromise. 
"So  speak  ye,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall  be  judged 
by  the  law  of  liberty.  For  he  shall  have  judgment 
without  mercy  that  hath  showed  no  mercy.  .  .  ." 

Should  we  falter  in  our  duty  and  for  the  sake  of  our 
lives  or  of  our  comfort  enter  into  an  inconclusive  peace 
we  should  condone  murder,  betray  our  allies,  and  aban- 
don those  who  have  died  fighting  for  that  liberty  whose 
torch  America  still  holds  aloft  for  the  world  to  see. 
We  shall  not  fail,  but  we  shall  be  sorely  tried. 

"And,  behold,  the  Lord  passed  by,  and  a  great  and 
strong  wind  rent  the  mountains,  and  broke  in  pieces 
the  rocks  before  the  Lord;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the 

306 


WHAT  THE  WAR  HAS  DONE  FOR  US 

wind;  and  after  the  wind  an  earthquake;  but  the  Lord 
was  not  in  the  earthquake;  and  after  the  earthquake 
a  fire;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  fire;  and  after  the 
fire  a  still  small  voice.  .  .  .  And  the  Lord  said.  .  .  . 
And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  him  that  escapeth  the 
sword  of  Hazael  shall  Jehu  slay;  and  him  that  escapeth 
from  the  sword  of  Jehu  shall  Elisha  slay.  Yet  I  have 
left  me  seven  thousand  in  Israel,  all  the  knees  which 
have  not  bowed  unto  Baal,  and  every  mouth  which 
hath  not  kissed  him." 


307 


THTS 


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